It’s interesting to see the new fleet of buses in Southampton that quite rightly offer Free Wi-Fi on each of their vehicles.

Whilst this may quite useful for the people sat in the city’s frustratingly busy corridors of travel, what intrigued our Geekabit team the most was the branding surrounding this.

Each of the vehicles is clearly labelled as free ‘4G Wi-Fi’. This got us thinking as we sat wondering how long it would take to get anywhere – “does anyone care if the Wi-Fi is powered by 4G?”. Additionally, do half the people even know what that means? 4G internet may be the source of the internet on that particular bus, but what does it mean to the average consumer?

We see “Free Wi-Fi” posters and signs across Europe now as standard, and although it can be a big draw, there does need to be some consideration over exactly what they mean.

Sat writing this in a coffee shop offering such a facility (I’m glad you’ve now got Wi-Fi Coffee #1), can we please consider a few things?

1) Terrible experiences lead to loss of customers – I am connected to my 4G iPhone, as I know it will work. I can’t trust the Wi-Fi here. For people with significantly less data allowances, I can see them changing to a venue where we know it will work properly.

2) If you promise free Wi-Fi, then make sure it’s easily accessible – confusing and broken captive portals that need your waist measurement are frustrating for everyone.

3) Free Wi-Fi in a venue means that – everywhere. Make sure it works in every nook and cranny, not just one end of your coffee shop, bar or restaurant. You can’t do this by hiding an access point in a back room or under the counter.

One of the biggest frustrations, and let downs with the technology, is the over-marketing and over-promise of free internet wherever you go. If you’re intending to offer this service, be clear what you mean, and make sure that it is as faultless as possible.

If we continue to let people down with Wi-Fi, then they will slowly learn to not trust the technology, and migrate to the 4G and 5G platforms as quickly as they can.

We wondered through the streets of Soho on Friday night deep in the middle of the famous London powercut of Black Friday 2016.

Meandering through familiar streets, restaurants and bars lit purely by candlelight, people spilling out over pavements and talking with strangers who had only just met each other – it was quite a sight.

But it also caused a massive spike in the use of mobile data networks, perhaps people all wanting to tweet the news of the lack of juice in the lamp-posts? More likely, suddenly users realised they weren’t connected to their local, regular Wi-Fi networks in their pubs, offices and neighbourhoods.

Have you considered what happens to your users when the power goes out? How important is access to your internet connection both wired and wireless? Can your support or customer service department afford to have the downtime?

These are all questions we ask when planning new Wi-Fi network installations in London, Cardiff and Hampshire, helping our users to understand the resilience of their networks and which bits are truly vital for 24hr a day operation.

For a business of any size, it is worth considering where you need to ensure the power never goes out, and additionally where it would be quite nice to be disconnected for a few hours.

If you live in an area saturated in Wi-Fi signals being broadcast from a multitude of different homes and businesses, it’s really interesting to note how modern day, smart access points start to react.

You’ll suddenly see your fast Wi-Fi slow right down, with pages, video and imagery taking ages to load, when only half an hour before it was running smoothly and quickly. Welcome to the world of interference.

When focussing specifically at the crowded 2.4GHz space, you’ll notice that access points (such as your BT Broadband router) will frequently change the channel it is working on, several times an hour, fighting to find the quietest channel to operate on.

These changes don’t happen very quickly, and you’ll begin to notice a lag in the internet speed. Your access point/router is re-configuring itself. Lucky thing, but what about you and your users?
Fixing your channel manually to the quietest and less crowded channel is the best solution. Very few times do automated setups for Wi-Fi products make the most sense. In this instance, automatic is not smartest!

If every other business or home in the local area uses the same or similar product, then there’s a high chance that every access point is playing this game, jumping around all over the place fighting for the same space. It’s a game that will never end.

Maybe work together with your neighbours, bring down the power of each broadcast signal so it doesn’t bleed across properties and offices, and choose fixed channels to begin to give everyone a better experience of Wi-Fi.

Interference doesn’t need to be an issue with a little smart setup of your products and working together for a better future.

If you need assistance in your business in London, Cardiff or Hampshire, our team of Wi-Fi Experts at Geekabit will be delighted to work with you to find the solution.

When we mention what our team does, although “Fixing and Installing Wi-Fi” sounds pretty geeky, you’ll soon find that a small crowd forms around us. Literally everywhere.

Wherever we go and whoever we see, everyone at some point has an issue with Wi-Fi. It’s now almost (or should be) ubiquitous in society, and yet there are so many people who have issues, without understanding at all what is going on.

Often the fixes are relatively simple and today’s big “calamity” can be easily resolved with a brief visit.

What gets our teams in Hampshire, London and Cardiff really turned on though is not the knowledge or the skill of understanding the issue, but getting down on the ground at one of our clients, setting to work measuring and reading all the different environments that are going on.

It really, really excites us. We will go above and beyond to make sure we find out what is going on, and spend a huge amount of time on roofs, up ladders, out in the rain, digging up fields and running up and down stairs, just to make sure that simple thing works seamlessly “connecting to Wi-Fi”.

And our business growing, due to our passions. We’ve opened offices in London and Cardiff after starting in Hampshire a few years ago, and we’re proud to be specialists.

We know that when people call, they have a real need. And we have a huge passion to solve that.