Drive Revenue with Wi-Fi Access Management
New Ruckus Wireless cloud Wi-Fi management service aims to help SMBs, SMEs, and VARs cut costs and drive business.
By Jude Chao | Posted May 1, 2014
Here at Enterprise Networking Planet, we encourage networking and IT pros to boost their job performance and career prospects by engaging with the overall business pressuresat their companies. Bringing your projects and proposals in line with business goals demonstrates that you're a big-picture thinker capable of bringing real value to your employer. And what do most employers want? To spend less and make more. A new, cloud-based Wi-Fi management solution from Ruckus Wireless claims to help organizations do just that.
Announced last month, Ruckus's Smart Access Management Service (SAMS) allows businesses (and the VARs and MSPs that serve them) to quickly configure public Wi-Fi hotspot access, serve advertisements and other content on custom registration pages, and manage the wireless network, all from a unified cloud dashboard. This eliminates the need for businesses to maintain their own WLAN controllers, authentication servers, advertising engines, and other infrastructure. Theoretically, this should significantly cut infrastructure costs. Additionally, the user-friendliness of the dashboard and the drag-and-drop configuration wizards, which Ruckus demonstrated for me in a video call, enable rapid setup and deployment.
Among the features most likely to help wireless network admins bring value to their organizations are the data collection and analytics tools included with SAMS. Social logins and custom survey questions presented at launch can help businesses collect demographic information to fine-tune their campaigns and sales strategies. The WYSIWYG login page editor allows for consistent branding. Finally, enterprising users can monetize their networks by offering advertising opportunities to other businesses.