Prioritizing Wi-Fi in Enterprise Verticals

Mauro Rizzi

November 28, 2017

First it was bring your own device (BYOD) that left enterprises scrambling to include employees’ personal mobile phone or tablet devices on the network in a secure, efficient way. Now, it’s estimated that 3.7 million employees work from home at least half the time, creating new challenges for the enterprise network.

If employee mobile connectivity challenges weren’t enough for enterprises, add that the industry estimates each consumer owns roughly 3.64 mobile devices, a number that has surely increased since first estimated in 2016.

With so many devices connecting to enterprise networks, how can enterprises ensure the devices that must be connected, are, while balancing the needs of all the connections?

Late last month we announced our Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess® Stellar access points to accommodate the digital transformation of businesses, including next-generation mobility services and Internet of Things (IoT).

Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess Stellar access points use a controllerless architecture with distributed control intelligence providing more reliability, better scalability and reduced cost. It delivers a high-quality user experience leveraging the 802.11ac Wave 2 technology, for indoor and outdoor usage, with resiliency and security. Furthermore, it includes integrated guest management and built-in DPI that can be leveraged for smart analytics and to help automated and secure onboarding of Internet of Things devices on the network.

To help better understand the impact of digital transformation on enterprise networks, we’ve put together a series of blogs and other materials to provide you the insight. You can download the whitepapers and infographic http://bit.ly/2xR6CHI.

This post focuses on how specific enterprise verticals can ensure critical devices remain connected with necessary speeds, while all of the other mobile devices are connected to the network at the same time.

Healthcare – Digital transformation in healthcare has enabled doctors to access patient information remotely, but while medical staff is accessing the WiFi, so too are the patients and visitors. How can healthcare facilities ensure medical personnel have fast and reliable access when time is of the essence in making decisions about patient care? With the distributed intelligent architecture of the OmniAccess Stellar WLAN, higher priority will be automatically assigned to the doctor’s device, and, with smart radio management, user traffic will be load-balanced across the available frequencies and APs. The distributed intelligent architecture of the OmniAccess Stellar WLAN is also self-healing, which means that the doctor doesn’t even notice a break in service. Neighboring APs dynamically adjust coverage to counteract the failure and to guarantee high availability.

Public Transportation – People on the go rely on WiFi because carrier networks are not always reliable in all areas. With mobile ticketing becoming more regular, access to WiFi is becoming more important than ever in buses, trains and other public transportation. To ensure these vehicles run smoothly, transportation staff are even more reliant on the WiFi for relaying service information or contacting staff. With intelligent WiFi, transportation facilities can ensure both travelers and staff are covered. Intelligent WiFi allows facilities to deliver reliable, high-bandwidth wherever it is needed, and optimize app performance over a guest network, while reducing the cost of providing and maintaining wireless coverage.

The right wireless management platform can also ensure that the student and staff networks are secure, and compliant with regulatory standards.

Hospitality – WiFi has become a standard amenity expected by hotel guests, but is also a valuable source of data about guest behavior and patterns of demand, which can help to unlock new revenue streams. With distributed intelligent architecture, on a virtualized platform, hoteliers can deploy entirely virtually separate networks for guests and staff, through the same access points. They can also provide a third secure network for back office teams, while extending assured coverage wherever it needs to reach, linking staff across resorts or large properties to provide a consistently excellent guest experience.

As seen in the examples above, distributed Wi-Fi control and centralized management can be incredibly helpful in a variety of enterprise applications. Stay tuned for more on the white papers and news and information on the benefits of the OmniAccess® Stellar.