In an environment of constant connectivity, Guest WiFi has become a must-have for many businesses. Customers expect this service to be available in public areas such as coffee shops, hotels, libraries and children’s activity centres as well as hospitality and entertainment venues. Increasingly, visitors expect to be able to use WiFi whenever they visit a business or organisation, even when it’s not a public area. Without Guest WiFi, many businesses will struggle to attract and retain customers, particular when the service is offered by the competition.

We have seen a huge rise in enquiries about our Guest WiFi service in recent times. As well as the attraction to customers and visitors, there are also many benefits to be had by businesses from installing Guest WiFi in your premises. Our service, for example, offers a built-in editor and analytics service that enables businesses to customise the user’s experience and collect valuable data. This data can help businesses to better understand their customers so that they can their target their products and services more effectively in the future. Customisable welcome pages can be used as an additional marketing platform and businesses can benefit from email capture, enabling them to stay connected with their customers once they have left the premises. This can provide a valuable database for future email marketing campaigns.

So, it seems that Guest WiFi is a winning solution for all. But, how secure is it? In this post, we take a look at some of the important security considerations when installing Guest WiFi in your premises.

It’s important to keep your WiFi connections secure, in order to protect both your company and your guests. First and foremost, you should ensure that you have control over the content that is accessible to your guests. You need to have customisable content filtering so that you can choose the type of content that is restricted, at a level that is appropriate for your establishment and protects the legal responsibilities of your company. If you run a family-friendly business, for example, you will probably want to enforce the tightest controls.

It’s important to consider that not all Guest WiFi solutions are secure. Many smaller businesses, in particular, attempt to enable Guest WiFi themselves by setting up their basic router to offer a separate connection. However, this is often unsecure and leaves your network vulnerable to hackers. If you do this, you could be putting your business’ and your guests’ data in jeopardy. To avoid this, it’s advisable to invest in a professional, secure Guest WiFi solution. By offering secure Guest WiFi, you will be providing your guests with much greater protection against the threat of malware and cyber-attacks. By providing a secure network, you can also be sure that you are complying with internet and industry regulations.

Finally, it’s important to ensure that your company data is kept secure, which is why it’s important to have a network for guests that is separate from your office LAN. You don’t want visitors to have network access to your internal servers and data. Even though the guest network will be separate, however, it is still advisable that it has WPA2 encryption. A completely open network is always going to be more vulnerable and it’s not too much to ask for your guests to have to type a password in, is it?

Ultimately, it’s always best to consult a specialist provider to ensure that you’re Guest WiFi connection is properly installed and secure. At Midland Networks, we provide an outstanding service that offers fast and secure connectivity at a price that is affordable, even for small businesses. For more information, contact us today on 0800 849 8585.