Shops and shopping centres need strong broadband and Wi-Fi for card machines, tills, advertising screens, tablets (for ordering, showcasing stock or designing something like a kitchen with a customer) as well as security solutions e.g., CCTV which requires stable, reliable and secure connectivity.
Your business is defined by your connectivity. Your connectivity is how you interact with your customers, suppliers and staff but it is also defined by the speed of which you connect and interact with them. It is key for the day-to-day running of your business and its systems.
Strong connectivity means an increase in:
Productivity – Profitability – Efficiency – Happy Customers (and Staff) – Business Resiliency
Broadband Solutions for Shops and Shopping Centres
Shops and shopping centres that have an unreliable connection to the internet are likely to experience slow speeds and possibly significant downtime.
In this day and age, downtime could result in loss of sales as most customers want to make their purchase or get the information they need, quickly. Should you be experience downtime, they may just decide to go to your competitor who does have reliable connectivity.
Your broadband needs to be adaptable and flexible to your needs but ultimately, it needs to be reliable.
Best Broadband for a Retail Unit
For your retail unit we recommend FTTP, however if that is not available, we recommend FTTC.
Best Broadband Solution for a Shopping Centre
The best broadband solution for a shopping centre depends on a few factors. For instance, if you are going to put in a wi-fi solution which is available for visitors, then you’ll need Ethernet. If it is purely needed for centre managers then we recommend FTTP or FTTC, if it is available, unless you are a large shopping centre in which case, we would recommend an Ethernet solution.
Unlike Broadband, Ethernet was designed for businesses, not the residential market. Its key advantage lies in its use of dedicated high-capacity fibre optic lines. Ethernet services are dedicated, uncontended broadband services with guaranteed bandwidth, synchronous speeds and SLA’s.
Business Broadband Connections
Fibre Broadband (FTTC / FTTP)
FTTC is Fibre to the Cabinet is where fibre-optic cable is used from the telephone exchange to the green, roadside cabinet and then, copper cable to the business. FTTC can achieve speeds of up to 76Mbps for downloads and 19Mbps for uploads.
FTTP is Fibre to the Premise is where fibre-optic cables are used to transmit from the exchange all the way to the business’s premises. FTTP provides bandwidths of up to 1Gbps for downloads and 50Mbps for uploads.
Single Order Generic Ethernet Access (SoGEA)
Usually, you’d install a phone line with broadband but with SOGEA, you don't need this.
You can get contended and uncontended services with SOGEA. The bandwidth is asynchronous, however with SOGEA Ethernet you can have an uncontended synchronous 20Mbps / 20Mbps service, but this is dependent on your distance from the street cab
Fibre Ethernet
Uncontended, guaranteed high bandwidth and uptime.
Speeds: From 10Mpbs up to 10Gbps
Fibre Ethernet uses bearers. Bearers are the bandwidth size of the available circuit, it’s the maximum speed that the circuit can go up to. With Fibre Ethernet you can get 100Mbps bearers and add on block of 10Mbps, 1Gbps bearers and add on blocks of 100Mbps up to 500Mbps then after 1Gbps or 10Gbps bearers that you can add on blocks of 1Gbps.
Ethernet Flex
You also have unlimited usage and on-demand bandwidth which means there is no need for portal requests.
Speeds: Guaranteed 200Mbps with 1 Gbps burst
Converged FTTC Ethernet
Dedicated, uncontended with guaranteed bandwidth speeds and SLA’s.
Ethernet services are dedicated, uncontested broadband services with guaranteed bandwidth, speeds, and SLA’s.
You can choose to have Ethernet Data only, Ethernet Voice Only (used in conjunction with SIP Trunks and Hosted Phone Systems) or Converged Ethernet (Voice, Data and using SIP and a Hosted Phone System.
Use our Connectivity checker to see what solutions are available.
Wi-Fi Solutions in Retail
Wi-Fi is as crucial as the broadband solution you put in place because some of the tools you use in retail, requires a wi-fi connection so its not restricted by a data cable, such as tablets, stock scanners and advertising screens.
The reliability of your Wi-Fi is dependent on the strength of your signal and there are many things that can affect your signal.
Public Wi-Fi network
Public Wi-Fi network is essentially opening your wi-fi network to the public so that everyone can access it.
There are of course, security risks to consider which is why as a key rule you should keep all day-to-day operations on a separate network specifically for internal users.
Despite some risks, owning a Public Wi-Fi network can be hugely beneficial, for the following reasons:
- Marketing – you can have a fixed log-in page, where for users to obtain free Wi-Fi, they need to supply their emails and naturally be exposed to your promotional messages on the page.
- Increase footfall – if you advertise that you offer free Wi-Fi, that can be a huge draw for potential customers.
- Increase repeat purchases – if you have a café in your shop or shopping centre where people can sit down and burn time, they’ll turn to their devices. If they can freely access your Wi-Fi, they may spend longer because they are more comfortable, which in turn can increase further purchases.
Wi-Fi Security
Wi-Fi security is a key concern for all businesses but particularly in retail but you shouldn’t reject the idea of going wireless when there are things that can be put in place to minimise your risk.
With Wi-Fi security, we use the following products which mean that you have a strong and resilient network:
- Policy Enforcement Firewall – with deep packet inspection to ensure that each connection and user session is secure. Our next-gen mobility firewall is aware of user roles, device types and app flows.
- Wireless Intrusion Protection – throughout your network to prevent denial-of-service, man-in-the-middle and other security threats. There is no need to separate RF sensors and security appliances.
- Policy Management – identifies all devices and users so that if an unknown device tries to connect, it is rejected and you are notified.