No matter who they are, people today expect WiFi access when they’re guests of your office. Setting up your WiFi the wrong way can create a tedious experience for them. Some incidents may even expose the company’s confidential information.
So what’s the right way to do it?
Never give guests access to your primary WiFi
While giving guests password to your company’s main WiFi might be the easiest way to get them connected, you should avoid this at all costs.
Anyone with a little technical know-how can potentially access everything on your company network. This includes your business’s confidential data. Not to mention, guests’ devices connected to your business network increase the risk of a malware infection since you can never be sure that they’re safe and secure.
Ways to create secondary Wi-Fi for guests
If your router has built-in guest WiFi support, you could use it to create a separate “virtual” network. This means guests will have access to the internet without connecting to your main company network.
If your router doesn’t support multiple WiFi networks, you can implement a separate wireless access point that bypasses the rest of your network and connects directly to your Internet service provider (ISP) connection.
Both options will keep your guests’ connectivity separate from your company network so you’ll never have to worry about unauthorized persons accessing your company data.
Keep in mind that guest WiFi still uses your ISP connection so you should limit bandwidth usage on your guest network. The last thing you want is a guest streaming videos that slow down the Internet for your employees. With that in mind, you can even have your employees use guest WiFi for their personal devices too. This minimizes the chance of employees hogging company bandwidth for personal use.
Your guest WiFi should only provide outsiders with internet access, nothing more. While the proper setup isn’t rocket science, it can be a tedious process. Having said that, if you need a team of experts to take care of it all for you, or simply have questions about how else to leverage your hardware for better efficiency and security, just give us a call.