WiFiFee Ensures Service with InterMapper
Company: WiFiFee
Location: Menands, New York
Business: Provide wireless services to businesses, hotels, apartment complexes, and hot spots in the New York's Capital District region and Texas
InterMapper's Role: Help maintain 24 x 7 uptime of elements and overall service
Quote: “The wireless market is very competitive. If things don't work, we're out of business.”
Brian Epstein runs WiFiFee, a wireless internet service provider headquartered in Menands, New York and doing business in that state's Capital District Region as well as the State of Texas. WiFiFee is doing well; Epstein has built a solid subscriber base by targeting downtown areas, hotels, and apartment complexes. But competition in the wireless space is stiff. “We have to outperform Verizon and numbers of subscribers is important.”
The big selling point of wireless is…no wires. As Epstein points out, “People who live in apartments can bring their laptops to the pool or laundry room.” Hotel customers don't need to worry about phone connections and downtown coffee shops can become hot spots. Everyone benefits from high speed. No matter how convenient wireless internet is from a wireless perspective, it only delivers value if the network is reliable 24x7x365.
“InterMapper is very strategic for us,” reports Epstein. “Lots of ISPs are reactive rather than proactive. We use InterMapper to monitor channel changes, frequency, and bandwidth. If there's interference, we'll find it and fix it quick.”
WiFiFee relies heavily on the detailed statistics InterMapper reports. “We won't use a wireless product that doesn't report statistics through InterMapper.” He especially appreciates InterMapper's use of SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) monitoring which goes beyond simple pinging to gather data describing the status and performance of network equipment and connections.
Epstein and his team stay on top of a lot of equipment and connections. A typical apartment complex customer, for example, has 200-300 apartment units supported by a dedicated backhaul that connects to 30-40 access points. Multiply that across many customer complexes, commercial buildings, hotels, and hot spot locations and constant, proactive monitoring seems an impossible task.
InterMapper allows WiFiFee technicians to map – geographically display gear and customer locations – their network. Color-coding and reports provide real-time information about operations. Problems are identified before customers experience slowdowns or complete downtime. Time to fix, when fixes are needed, is greatly speeded because technicians know exactly where to go and what to do.
How does Epstein measure the value of InterMapper and his entire network operations? “Well, we've never lost a customer,” he reports.