Why Mesh Matters

Did you know that we highly recommend mesh networks to our clients who have busy offices, multiple devices, or have staff that need to be moving around with uninterrupted internet connectivity during their work day?

What in the world is a mesh network?

Simply put, a mesh network is a group of access points that are placed strategically around your office to provide a strong and consistent internet connection in every space where being online is important.

Why does mesh matter?

Lets say you work in a busy medical office. Different staff members are going room to room with a tablet or mobile device. These devices, when not getting a strong signal, become unreliable with an unstable connection. With a mesh network, as you go room to room, you are continually and automatically connected as you move from place to place, allowing for information on your fleet of mobile devices to be uploaded in real-time, so you never lose information or have a lag in coverage. 

How do we get our hands on a reliable mesh?

Funny you should ask! Our team does not sell mesh hardware, so let’s get that out of the way. We are not here to profit on the sale of mesh hardware. That said – we will guide you through purchasing your own hardware (some IT companies lease it, or re-sell it, but we find that this becomes more expensive for the client, and more cumbersome for our team. We like to keep it clean.) We have experience with different hardware, and can recommend our favorites.

When the time comes, our team installs a single node, which is designated as the system’s primary router. This main node is wired directly into your organization’s gateway connection. From there, additional nodes are added, as dictated by the unique needs of your business setting. These nodes essentially act as satellites, working together to form a seamless network for you and the employees who work so hard to make your business a success.

What happens if we don’t opt in on the mesh movement? 

Well. We won’t force you to choose faster, more reliable internet. We can’t make you see the value in enhanced security. Please by all means, feel free to carry on with your compromised security, poor coverage, and slower speeds. But we’ll be over here, patiently waiting and ready to install and manage your lightening-fast mesh network when you’re ready. We will be able to access your main controller remotely from our office, so that we can boot unwelcome devices off the network, reset your connection after an outage, and make changes without having to even step foot in your business, during or after hours. That’s one of the coolest part of being an IT company – we can remotely monitor your assets, and we love being able to do this for you, by the way.  It’s good for our carbon footprint.

This sounds expensive.

We guess it depends on how you define expensive. If your ol’ wireless router isn’t providing the coverage that your office needs, we would consider the slow connection and wasted man hours while they watch the spinning circle of death kind of expensive. Lost information and frozen internet can be frustrating, and there’s definitely a cost to that too.

The actual costs, based the average going market rate of the access points that we recommend, run around $150 each as of today, and to manage and maintain your mesh network, the service subscription (our teams services and remote monitoring) is $10/node per month. So, honestly – the ROI often is recouped pretty quickly.  Plus you will be cooler than your competitors when you run into them at Starbucks and point out how you had an extra long coffee break thanks to getting ahead of the work-curve because of your wicked-fast-network-connection.

Please do give our team a shout to see if a mesh network is right for your bustling business!