Public WiFi for your Business

Business WiFi

Customers using WiFi at retail business spend 23% more and increase visit frequency by 19% when compared to customers that do not connect to WiFi. Customer spend and frequency rates decrease even more when businesses are in cellular dead zones.

Retail business providing WiFi service to customers see 28% more customer loyalty when compared to their competitors that do not provide customer access to WiFi.

Retail businesses see an increase in customer spend and loyalty within 10-days of a new WIFi implementation. Public signage of WiFi service increases foot traffic. Menu mentions of WiFi increases customer loyalty as well as improves labor efficiency.

Public WiFi and Hotspots are the single most exploited target for business cybercrime and customer identity theft. Savvy customers will know if WiFi is in-secure and will not use, circumvent systems and exploit access.

Everyday Edgebrook WiFi leverages all these benefits and eliminates the risks.

Your Edgebrook WiFi Customers will have easy one-click, reliable access to spend more time and return more frequently – because they know they are secure from cyber threats and identity theft. No passwords getting to the wrong people and no need to routinely change passwords.

Your business systems are secure against threats from customers and the Internet. Protecting your business operations and point-of-sale for your PCI compliance.

Features:

1. All your customers will recognize familiar networks and logos from other community businesses
2. Customer access click-thru sign-on – no password needed, still secure
3. No upfront costs (AT&T/Comcast service is required)
   1. Equipment financing, maintenance and on-going support available for low monthly charges (bartering agreements are available too)
4. Cloud managed for
   1. quick remote support, easy changes and upgrades
   2. See who is in your store now – staff and customers from the Internet
5. Secure all customer device traffic and isolate business operations
6. 100% WiFi coverage across your entire store without dead zones
7. Market your website, promotions and Facebook pages
8. Cross marketing from participating Edgebrook businesses (coming soon)
9. Cross promote reward/loyalty programs (coming soon)
10. Intrusion detection and prevention – prevent cybercriminals from accessing your point of sale (PoS)
11. Deep packet inspection – see what Internet services and mobile devices your customers use most
12. Email alerts when new customers sign-in or when system failures occur
13. Bolt-on services for security cameras, telephones and energy efficient lighting solutions too
14. Control staff and customer access on an individual basis.

About Us

Kevin Benson is a professional technical Architect specializing in information security, system virtualization and networking – providing business critical solutions to the countries fortune-1000 customers.

Kevin has always been a native Chicagoan, and a Sauganash resident for 12-years. Kevin supports the community and local business, and is passionate about technology. It is for this reason that he offers to work for community businesses on a freelance basis and accepts barter in trade for these valuable services. Kevin freelances under the company name of Bugs Byte (www.bugsbyte.com)

Ubiquiti Unifi Software Defined Networking

Ubiquiti provides a stack of IT solutions to the prosumer (Professional Consumer) and the small to medium sized business. Ubiquiti stack of solutions offers networking (Unifi), video and voice, all with software management and cloud integration.

Bugs Byte has just delivered a solution from Ubiquiti for Dayton Place. In this deployment Dayton Place can now have complete visibility to their internal network and video security from anywhere with Internet access.

Management

The Ubquiti Cloud Key is at the heart of the Ubiquiti Unifi solution to software defined networking (SDN). The Cloud Key is the local software that ties in the management of the entire Unifi solution – including wireless, connectivity, security and monitoring. The Cloud Key software can be installed on any computer (Window, Mac and Linux); however, is also sold as a PoE powered appliance needing only connected by one port to a PoE switch. With properly configured network and security settings, a Cloud Key can reside on any connected network and manage equipment at remote Internet connected sites. Once the Cloud Key is paired up with a Unifi cloud account, all of its management and monitoring features are accessible in the cloud.

All of the Ubiquiti services, video, voice and networking, are available to be installed on computers of various operating systems (PC, Mac etc.), but also provide decentralized management through apps for IOS and Android (sorry BlackBerry). In the Dayton Place application the Cloud Key and Network Video Recorder (NVR) appliances were selected  for their relative low cost and compatibility when comparing to Windows/Intel implementation.

The Cloud Key when connected to a Unifi account enables cloud access to settings, monitoring and firmware updates for WiFi, ethernet and firewall equipment.

Wireless

Ubiquiti Access points (UAP) were installed to provide up to four independant SSIDs each. Ubiquiti offers a range of wireless access points (WAP) in two distinct applications. The range of coverages offered start with the residential customer in homes and scale up to the wireless fiber for line-of-site connection between distant buildings. Applications include conventional ceiling and wall mount as well as an innovative recepticle design. The receptical design replaces a convential ethernet wall jack with with and all-in-one PoE powered WAP and RJ45 jack with PoE pass-thru.

During this process it was learned that the UAPs required a legacy version of PoE (24-volt passive) that is not supported by current Ubiquiti switches. in essence, current PoE standards (802.11at) incorporate a power negotiation between the device providing the power and the device consuming it. While some lines of Ubiquiti switches have maintained support for legacy PoE, Ubuquiti has committed to phasing it out entirely. In the mean time, the legacy PoE is available with the in-box PoE injector as well as in-line converters from the current standards to the legacy. Using the converters will allow remote power cycling devices via the switch port management where as the injector will require hands-on effort.

The current WiFi implementation provides conventional password protected (WPA-PSK) access to WiFi. Additionally the solution does offer custom portals, walled gardens, hot spots and other guest access features.

This solution is planned to segment SSIDs for each tenant/guest as well as to implement guest services feature for transient use without needing to provide a password.

Broadband

Dayton Place is serviced by RCN cable internet broadband for its internet up-link. The service installed includes 155Mb download and 25Mb upload with a dynamically assigned IP address.

The Arris Gateway was provided by RCN and set to bridged mode. This will pass expose any downstream device to public Internet. In this mode the all routing, NATing and firwall functions can be handed off to the downstream device – Ubiquiti Secure Gateway in this case.

An unexpected condition occurred with this particular Arris gateway once set to bridge mode – The WiFi remained enabled but now handed out public IP addresses to wireless clients. And there is evidence that settings for dynamic DNS (DDNS) were retained after factory reset and despite bridge mode.

The gateway is planned to be replaced with a customer owned device in order for a 4-month return on investment (ROI).

… See more about the video, switch and firewall implementations in the next post.