These days most homes have a minimum of five devices connected to their home WiFi network. More likely, however, the figure is far higher. Most adults have their own smartphone, and many households have a smartphone for each child as well. Many homes have tablets, computers, streaming devices, smart home devices, and more.
In my own family of four, we have 30 devices connected to our WiFi network. This number will continue to rise as smart home products gain critical mass.
The downside? We'll face network slowdowns, and we'll stumble with dead spots because we're still running routers and WiFi broadcasting devices of the past. Mesh WiFi Network can solve some problems, but they can involve significant learning curves for consumers.
Consumer Managed Services: Opportunity Knocking?
We recently asked if MSPs were ready to take on consumer networks. Some vendors seem to be saying yes. One example: ARRIS, an entertainment and communications technology company, has launched ARRIS HomeAssure, a solution for service providers to deliver optimum home WiFi experiences.
HomeAssure combines WiFi extenders and intelligent gateways with a comprehensive set of tools to help customers and service providers achieve consistent, high-speed WiFi coverage, in and around the home.
For service providers, the HomeAssure solution can assist service desks with common help desk call drivers by providing customer support personnel with much-needed visibility, as well as the tools to remotely manage and optimize WiFi for the customer to maintain the best service levels for all devices on the home network, the company states.
ARRIS HomeAssure includes:
- Auto-configuration of network extenders – When a customer needs to increase coverage in their home, they can easily accomplish the task with self-configuring, ARRIS HomeAssure enabled Wi-Fi extenders.
- Automated Network Optimization – Instead of trying to figure out which extender to connect various devices to, the devices will automatically move to the access point with the best signal or to avoid congestion and maximize performance. Fast Steering capabilities (also known as BSS Transition Management, 802.11v) move devices between access points in milliseconds, enabling voice or video calling over Wi-Fi.
- Consumer control via app, web and voice – Service providers are able to manage the home network and fix problems, simply. This includes viewing and changing SSID/ passwords, signal measurement to locate the best place for an extender, configuring guest access and setting parental controls.
- ECO Cloud Management – With remote monitoring and configuration for policy management and fault diagnosis service providers are also able to resolve problems quickly. The cloud platform will provide analytics for service improvement and consumer insights. The entire network is visible through the cloud management tool giving the help desk tools to assist the customer.
With the management tools provided by ARRIS HomeAssure, the ability for MSPs to support users in their home environment could become just as easy as supporting them in the office. The question we asked in a previous post remains, however, if MSPs will cash in on supporting these home users...
