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Where agility, security and efficiency are key competitive advantages for your business, the connectivity of your Wi-Fi becomes the linchpin of your operations. Staying ahead is synonymous with staying connected. Wi-Fi plays an important role in fostering productivity, amplifying communication, and ultimately propelling your business forward.

Despite investing huge sums of money in Wi-Fi equipment, many businesses suffer from poor Wi-Fi connectivity. This results in employees staying tethered to their desks by the ethernet cables instead of working where they can be most productive.

Getting to the root of Wi-Fi connectivity issues can help you take the right steps towards fixing it and helping restore flexibility and mobility at your workplace. In this blog our Head of Networks and Security, Ashley Le Hegarat, considers the top reasons why you can’t connect in that one part of the office, or why your Wi-Fi drops in the middle of that important Teams call. Most importantly, he will also give you some top tips to fix and improve your network.

Why you need effective Wi-Fi

As an employer, you want your employees to be productive. You want them to have the tools they need to get the job done, the best they can. And in the least amount of time.

Cloud-Based Applications

Cloud-based apps make it possible to get work done from just about anywhere and collaborate with partners around the world. The cloud enables you to back up your data securely so you can still access it from anywhere, no matter what happens. These tools can consolidate and streamline your workflow, and because they run on the web, they don’t require any installation time.

Telephony

Another option is to use Wi-Fi to overhaul your telephone system. Voice over IP (VoIP) and other internet-based communication technologies let you effortlessly route and reroute calls, even if a key member of your team is on the go. They scale up easily for growth, or you can leverage them to take advantage of a distributed team. In case something goes wrong, they offer a high level of redundancy to keep you connected to your customers.

Business-grade Wi-Fi is the backbone of all these technologies, so you need a solid network to support them.

Employee Motivation

One of the best ways to keep employees motivated and engaged is to put them in a position to succeed. You want your team to feel like you’re taking care of them, and if you’ve ever sat staring at a loading screen then you know what a difference a good Wi-Fi connection makes for your productivity (and your mood). You want to get work done, not be sitting around waiting to even get started. Help your employees do their jobs better, and with less frustration, with a speedy and reliable Wi-Fi connection.

Employees rely on Wi-Fi more than ever to perform their jobs and stay productive. Wi-Fi is depended upon in meetings to send emails, link to content online or from a company server, or to communicate with your clients. As employees increasingly work from their smartphones and tablets, Wi-Fi is also key to keeping them productive wherever they are – from conference rooms to offices or while on the move.

A wireless network also frees up your team to find the best space for them to focus, whether that’s a quieter space down the hall or the bustling coffee shop next door. By allowing each employee to find an environment that best suits them at a particular time (and with cloud-based collaboration tools, that environment might be home), you increase productivity and employee satisfaction.

4 Reasons your Wi-Fi isn’t Working Efficiently

Lack of Network Management

We often forget how complex business networks really are. They are very dynamic with the addition or removal of every new device or technology to your stack having an impact on the network performance.

The growing complexities of modern businesses, including work processes, security needs, compliance requirements, threat landscape, and customer and employee expectations make the optimal performance of networks a never-ending challenge. It needs real-time monitoring and constant maintenance.

Companies with wireless networks, or those considering implementing them, need to ensure that they are effectively managed and audited. They must appropriately plan their deployments, evaluate their specific security needs, establish appropriate policies and standards, and regularly conduct audits to ensure that their continually changing security needs are addressed and that all their policies are current, accurate and, most importantly, followed.

Poor Network Design and Configuration

The performance of a network depends on many factors, the main considerations among them are network design, components, configurations, and security settings. During the network design process, proper consideration should be given to sizing, the study of the floor plan, selection of network topology, and the physical network infrastructure such as cabling, faceplates, patch panels, etc. The position of access points is especially important for offices with complex layouts with large windows, closed spaces, and a variety of building materials.

Even with multiple access points, Wi-Fi dead spots are common because the obstructions such as walls, beams, cupboards, partitions, etc. can hamper the proper functioning of Wi-Fi networks. Therefore, office spaces require multiple access points that are strategically located based on a careful study of their floor plan. Additionally, the access points need to be programmed to different channels to prevent co-channel interference, which impacts Wi-Fi performance negatively.

While interference from other networks might seem logical, other appliances can mess with your Wi-Fi network in the same way. Many non-connected devices operate on the same frequency as Wi-Fi or even produce by-products that generally interfere with the signal. These appliances might be tools you use from day to day or provide for use by your staff.

Prime examples include microwaves, Bluetooth devices, headsets, and even security cameras. These devices can operate on the same 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz frequencies that most Wi-Fi networks use. As a result, they can congest the network in a way like other Wi-Fi networks.

Malware

Despite your best efforts, malware can sometimes infiltrate your network. But not every malware will hold you to ransom or cause outright damage. The malware may just hide somewhere in your network and do its best to evade detection. Such malware often uses network resources for activities such as crypto mining or exfiltrating data. In such cases, they will hog network resources and cause slowdowns.

To prevent malware infection and consequent network slowdowns, you need to employ network defences and network security best practices. Effective use of security controls such as network firewalls, Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS), web and spam filters, etc. can safeguard your network from a wide range of cyberattacks including brute force attacks, Denial of Service (DoS), etc.
 

Higher requirements on your technology stack

To keep up with growing demands, your network needs to keep up with the latest technologies. The performance of your ethernet network is usually a lot better than Wi-Fi when it comes to keeping up with the latest technologies. So, most organisations prefer to use wired networks when working on bandwidth-intensive technologies. The lack of flexibility due to the inability to use certain technologies on Wi-Fi can limit productivity.

As an end user, you work with many applications that require a constant internet connection. An application is any web-based tool or program you use. Imagine some applications like Google Drive, Dropbox, One Drive, Outlook, etc. These applications stay connected to the network even when running in the background and can be bandwidth hogs. The more users you have connecting to these applications, the larger the demand on bandwidth and potentially the higher the latency (amount of time to transmit).

Having a properly configured and setup wireless network also helps when it comes to security.

The Solution

Unlike the Wi-Fi equipment at homes, Wi-Fi in the workplace is never plug-and-play. It requires concerted efforts, real-time monitoring, and constant maintenance to make it work right. With the right tools, processes, and expertise, Wi-Fi will work seamlessly, enabling everyone at the workplace to make productive use of digital tools and resources. To get started we recommend a wireless audit to understand more about your network.

A wireless audit is a verification process in which we can determine exactly how secure your wireless network is. As data breaches and hacking become an increasing concern for businesses around the world, conducting a wireless audit can help to ensure the security of your important business information as well as promoting network optimisation for efficient workflow.

As part of the wireless audit, a wireless survey will be undertaken. This will confirm coverage, dead spots, configuration, etc. and verify the Wi-Fi meets the current business requirements. This should be undertaken, at minimum, annually or when the business requirements change. This ensures configuration and performance of the wireless network is monitored and maintained.

Why you should conduct an audit

There are many reasons your business might require a wireless audit, some of which include:

• Verifying existing network
• Informing/understanding your network and its vulnerabilities
• Experiencing frequent issues that disrupt workflow
• Business requirements have changed since installing the network
• Considering a network overhaul or upgrade

Benefits of conducting a wireless audit

An audit enables you to know where you stand and hep you understand current vulnerabilities. Through conducting a wireless audit, we are able to assess the security posture of your WLAN and ascertain whether there are any vulnerabilities within your setup in order to facilitate increased security and mitigate any risk of breach.

Once we know where you stand, diagnosing and resolving any pre-existing issues becomes simple, allowing us to achieve maximum security for your wireless infrastructure.

After diagnosis and resolution has been achieved, the focus then turns to optimising your network to mitigate potential risks and to ensure that network speed and reliability are supporting the requirements of your business. Optimising networks also allows you to achieve increased productivity within your business without the distractions or downtime that are often associated with defective networks.

Conclusion

Every modern workplace requires Wi-Fi, and it is unlikely that any office operates today only on a completely wired network. Wi-Fi has rightly become an integral component of business networks because it offers employees flexibility and mobility, helping build an employee-friendly workplace.

With so much change in wireless technology, senior management, audit committees and internal auditors need to make wireless reviews a part of the scope of their annual risk assessment programs.