These days many consumers, restaurants and retail establishments have adopted the use of WiFi or Free WiFi hotspot services to their customers in the greater Toronto area. While offering free WiFi and mobile hotspot services to your customers is a must and a necessity in the mind of the consumer. A recent study & survey was conducted in the streets of Toronto to see how many consumers of the ages between 17yrs of age & 65 years of age would expect a retail or restaurant establishment to have free WiFi services. Age groups between 17rs and 45yrs reported a 90% yes or agreed that offering a Free hotspot service is a must for any type of hospitality environment. Group ages between 46 years and 65years of age reported a 70% yes it should be offered and a 30% no/doesn't matter response.
There are hardware providers such as Ruckus and Meraki that offers you built in software in their cloud based access point and controllers but they don't offer you the option to fully deploy the social WiFi media aspect. Ruckus and Cisco Meraki are great products but they work even better when you deploy a solution such as Aislelabs or purplewifi. Aislelabs a well known company in the Greater Toronto area works with a well known vendor www.connectsim.ca.
The second solution to start a social WiFi offering is to purchase the additional hardware from a technology vendor and not have to worry about additional costs of licenses and monthly fees. The only additional monthly fees you would need to maintain are the hosted monthly social WiFi fee which ranges between $25cad/month and up to $50cad/month depending on features you require. Based on our knowledge and from what the majority of restaurants and retail stores are following is that they are mostly selecting a managed service offering and not choosing the route of purchasing their own hardware. When trying to manage your own hardware a restaurant owner will have to worry about compatible hardware with the hotspot social WiFi application.
Connectsim's software solution enables a restaurant or retail company to utilize their social WiFi software that works with their compatible wireless hardware. Their solution offers the retail or restaurant owner to have a fully managed campaign that takes care of content filtering, bandwidth restrictions so users don't burn through your internet rates.
We approached Connectsim at a local restaurant trade show to ask them the typical costs to start a campaign with them and how long a typical contract runs. From our quick 10 minute conversation with Connectsim their mid Social WiFi package starts at around $500/month with a 1 year commitment. For what they offer in this package is a steal (signage, branding, coasters, large signs, facebook management and twitter design pages and more)
So to summarize the hardware needed for a social WiFi zone depends if you'll be hosting it with a VAR (least start up costs and set up is fast), if you'll purchase the hardware yourself (needs a expensive controller, expensive router and extensive knowledge to set up). The last alternative route you can deploy is a cheap WiFi router but it will still cost you roughly $200-$400 to purchase plus licenses, as well you will need to purchase additional equipment to filter out content and bandwidth and to manage campaigns. The smart choice to deploy a social WiFi campaign is to select a managed service provider.
There are hardware providers such as Ruckus and Meraki that offers you built in software in their cloud based access point and controllers but they don't offer you the option to fully deploy the social WiFi media aspect. Ruckus and Cisco Meraki are great products but they work even better when you deploy a solution such as Aislelabs or purplewifi. Aislelabs a well known company in the Greater Toronto area works with a well known vendor www.connectsim.ca.
The second solution to start a social WiFi offering is to purchase the additional hardware from a technology vendor and not have to worry about additional costs of licenses and monthly fees. The only additional monthly fees you would need to maintain are the hosted monthly social WiFi fee which ranges between $25cad/month and up to $50cad/month depending on features you require. Based on our knowledge and from what the majority of restaurants and retail stores are following is that they are mostly selecting a managed service offering and not choosing the route of purchasing their own hardware. When trying to manage your own hardware a restaurant owner will have to worry about compatible hardware with the hotspot social WiFi application.
Connectsim's software solution enables a restaurant or retail company to utilize their social WiFi software that works with their compatible wireless hardware. Their solution offers the retail or restaurant owner to have a fully managed campaign that takes care of content filtering, bandwidth restrictions so users don't burn through your internet rates.
We approached Connectsim at a local restaurant trade show to ask them the typical costs to start a campaign with them and how long a typical contract runs. From our quick 10 minute conversation with Connectsim their mid Social WiFi package starts at around $500/month with a 1 year commitment. For what they offer in this package is a steal (signage, branding, coasters, large signs, facebook management and twitter design pages and more)
So to summarize the hardware needed for a social WiFi zone depends if you'll be hosting it with a VAR (least start up costs and set up is fast), if you'll purchase the hardware yourself (needs a expensive controller, expensive router and extensive knowledge to set up). The last alternative route you can deploy is a cheap WiFi router but it will still cost you roughly $200-$400 to purchase plus licenses, as well you will need to purchase additional equipment to filter out content and bandwidth and to manage campaigns. The smart choice to deploy a social WiFi campaign is to select a managed service provider.
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Try a FREE demo of our Social WiFi offering, or see it online. We ship across North America Social WiFi Toronto www.connectsim.ca
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