Spot On Networks new WiFi offering allows building owners to offer residents property-wide WiFi calling and subscription data services while continuing to honor marketing exclusivity agreements with cable and telco companies.
For Immediate Release
New Haven, CT February 27, 2017
Spot On Networks (“SON”) announced today the development of a new service offering that provides property-wide WiFi calling service and subscription-based tiered data services to residents in multifamily buildings. This new service offering uses SON’s UserSafe® WiFi technology to provide property-wide seamless, high-quality voice coverage with Quality of Service (“QOS”) and voice packet prioritization. This same wireless service also allows residents to subscribe to low-cost high speed WiFi internet services as an alternative to the high-cost plans offered by cable and telco ISPs. The new solution allows building owners to offer WiFi for voice-only services at no-cost while preventing residents from receiving data services unless they subscribe, thus allowing building owners to honor their existing marketing agreements which often do not allow a property to offer bulk data services. The property-wide wireless backbone also provides amenity area data services to residents at no cost and support for the Internet of Things (IoT). The pricing for this new model is significantly less than other voice solutions like a Distributed Antenna System (“DAS”).
The multifamily industry has long been plagued with poor in-building cellular coverage due to energy saving construction materials such as concrete and low-emission glass. Poor cellular coverage has hurt the multifamily industry resulting in dissatisfied residents and lease issues. Solutions to the in-building cellular coverage problem prior to the cellular carrier’s adoption of WiFi calling had been predominately cellular booster systems or DAS which is often a non-starter due to high cost and long deployment time. A property-wide wireless backbone with WiFi calling and subscription data services will typically cost a building owner $0.40 per square foot which is about one-fifth of a DAS solution.
While WiFi calling has been available in various forms for years, it has only become a viable in-building voice solution in the past eighteen months due to native dialing support from the four major cellular carriers: AT&T, Verizon, TMobile and Sprint as well as a host of MVNOs with various WiFi calling solutions and device offerings such as Republic Wireless and Google Project Fi. Spot On Networks has been developing and testing managed wireless services that support seamless, high-quality WiFi calling with QOS and voice packet prioritization for years.
“We have long been involved in developing in-building voice solutions for our building owner clients,” stated Spot On Networks CEO, Dick Sherwin. He continued, “Our CellBoost® product gave building owners a quick-to-deploy and cost-effective alternative to the DAS solution – but we have always seen the future as Voice Over WiFi. Because many building owners have existing marketing exclusivity agreements with cable and teleco companies, they were prevented from providing property-wide WiFi to residents. Our new wireless model allows building owners to use the less-expensive and more sophisticated UserSafe® WiFi solution for voice while honoring their marketing agreements AND providing residents with faster, lower-cost data services.”
Spot On Networks new hybrid voice and data solution is currently being deployed in many properties across the U.S. and is being highly sought after by affordable housing authorities, real estate investment trusts and multifamily building owners.
About Spot On Networks
Spot On Networks (“SON”) is a wireless internet service provider and wireless consulting company representing tens of thousands of residential and commercial tenants, nationwide. SON designs, deploys and manages carrier grade WiFi, WiFi Calling and CellBoost® networks to multifamily, senior living, hospitality, retail and commercial buildings. Spot On’s wireless networks are backed by patent pending network architecture and UserSafe® technology.
SON is the leading provider of managed WiFi networks and in-building voice solutions to the U.S. multitenant housing market and is a trusted leader in wireless since 2004. SON develops WiFi-backed solutions to solve the most pressing problems facing today’s building owners.