Small Business / Branch Office
From sole traders to professional service providers, most SME’s and branch offices need a reliable, secure and fast wireless network that meet their budget. Up until now, SME’s have had two choices of wireless network: high-end enterprise class networks or consumer grade wireless. Now there are quality intermediate wireless solutions available which offer the performance of corporate networks with small business friendly pricing.
Wireless offers numerous benefits to the small business or branch office:
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Wireless is Scalable Wireless networks can easily be scaled up or down depending on the needs of your office, saving you the costs previously associated with wired networks. |
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Wireless means Employees are No Longer Tied Down to Workstations Employees are no longer tied down to a particular workstation or office. They can bring their desktops, laptops or tablet PCs anywhere in your building. This means easier and quicker collaboration for your work teams. |
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Wireless means Tablet PC accessibility Most tablet PC devices such as the iPad or Samsung Galaxy do not have an Ethernet port, meaning they have to connect to the internet wirelessly. |
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Wireless Networks are Portable If you ever have to move office, you can take your wireless network with you. A wireless network can be re-installed in your new office location easily and quickly. |
Max Signal can install wireless networks for SME’s and branch offices that offer:
Excellent Coverage – A wireless network with an excellent coverage area, excellent data throughput rates and reliability.
Affordable – A corporate-quality wireless network which suits SME budgets.
Feature-Rich – The ability to create guest logins and restricted access to specified sites.
Security – Wireless networks that use strong encryption and authentication protocols.
Wireless Hotspots
By installing a wireless hotspot in your business premises, you can provide your customers, guests and the general public internet access on a casual basis.
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Your hotspot solution will be determined by:
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This benefits your business or organisation by:
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Case Study
Accountancy Firm and Wireless Network Dropouts
We were helping an accountancy firm in Dublin 2 who were experiencing persistent dropouts from their wireless network. There were 7 users on their wireless network. Every day it might work fine for a couple of hours but then connections would start to drop out. They had one Netgear DSL modem which was connected to a PFSense firewall appliance which was subsequently connected to a Cisco switch. A Cisco wireless router was connected to this switch.
As a result, staff in the firm were unable to complete their work on time due to the incessant drop-outs. This was made worse by the fact that the drop-outs were happening at a time when tax return deadlines were fast approaching.
We tested their broadband connection first. The speed and throughput rates were perfect. Their Cisco switch appeared to be operating perfectly as well. Using a spectrum analyser we checked their office for RF interference. None was found. Our suspicions then began to turn towards their PFSense firewall appliance. We checked its logs and found that the Snort feature enabled on the appliance was using up excessive CPU cycles of up to 90 per cent. We disabled Snort for the internal interface. We left it enabled for the rest of the network. After a “wait and see” period of twenty-four hours, the users reported no drop-outs. After ten days, the network was still running smoothly.
Conclusion: The Snort facility of their firewall was creating a choke point for their data. We updated the software and firmware on their firewall and closed the case much to the satisfaction of the client.
