case study

OVERVIEW SkyFii, an Australian provider of hotspot access, working with service provider and Ruckus partner BigAir, deploys free, pervasive, carrier class Wi-Fi access to heritage listed and one of ’s most iconic retail outlets at Queen Building (QVB) and adjacent IPOH retail outlets. Hotspot: SkyFii REQUIREMENTS • Reliable and pervasive signal cover- age throughout the four levels of the Building heritage site FREE WI-FI HOTSPOTS DELIVER SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MODEL AT QUEEN • Detail access and usage statistics for advertiser reporting VICTORIA BUILDING AND ADJACENT RETAIL OUTLETS IN CBD SkyFii is an Australian hotspot provider with a vision of bringing free, high-quality Wi-Fi • All APs to be painted to exactly match one of 7 QVB heritage col- access to the country, using an advertiser-supported model that has proved successful ours dependent on position in the US, the UK and parts of Asia, according to SkyFii director Wayne Arthur.

• Advanced Wi-Fi APs for thousands “There currently isn’t a ubiquitous free Wi-Fi network, of a consistent quality to serve of remote hotspot locations mobile device users across Australia,” he observed, but said SkyFii has the opportunity • Simple and robust remote manage- to fill that role. ment of Wi-Fi devices and services The SkyFii service is funded through the delivery of rich content on behalf of advertisers. • Automatic redirection of client ses- Traditionally users must watch around 15 seconds of advertising before their devices are sions for authentication registered on the network. This is a great proposition for advertisers, as it delivers the full attention of a mobile audience. “There’s proven benefit in this marketing approach for the SOLUTION advertiser,” said Arthur. • 16 Ruckus ZoneFlex 7363 Smart Wi-Fi APs Among the first locations to offer SkyFii’s Wi-Fi service are four Sydney CBD shopping • ZoneDirector 3000 Smart Wi-Fi centres operated by Ipoh Pty Limited, including, QVB (the Queen Victoria Building), The Controller Galeries, The Strand and Chifley Plaza.

• Ruckus FlexMaster Network Man- “As Queen Victoria said, we are agement System not interested in the possibilities of BENEFITS defeat” Arthur smiled. After seek- • Delivering consistent and reliable ing proposals from multiple service performance even during peak providers, SkyFii selected to work times with BigAir who put forward Ruckus • Elimination of manual management Wireless Smart Wi-Fi to complement of Wi-Fi devices its network services and Internet • Reliable signal and ubiquitous cover- connectivity, in order to achieve the age required quality of service. • Adaptable Wi-Fi signals allow reli- able coverage within hostile RF environment Iconic heritage building QVB and adjacent retail outlets offer Australia’s first ad sponsored free Wi-Fi hotspot, attracting over 2,200 users to stay online with fast and reliable Smart Wi-Fi. Hotspot SkyFii: Queen Victoria Building

“We are delighted with the performance of the content for specific retailers and service providers Ruckus equipment,” said Arthur, “its quality based on the access point that a device is con- exceeds anything else in the market.” Particularly nected to. important to SkyFii is the ability of Ruckus prod- ucts to handle a large number of simultaneous ses- “The system allows push marketing and on-site sions, along with the BeamFlex™ technologies that marketing,” said Jean Morel, General Manager at deliver the strongest possible signal to each device. BigAir, “such as special offers from retailers.”

Installation of the Ruckus equipment was “a In time, SkyFii will be able to present advertise- straightforward process,” said Arthur. “Working ments that are relevant to individual users, based with BigAir was both easy and a pleasure.” The fact on the MAC address of their devices and their pre- that QVB is a heritage-listed building did add some vious patterns of use. “Such a tailored delivery is complexity to the rollout. Sixteen Ruckus access where the industry is heading,” said Arthur. points (APs) were installed along with one Ruckus The Ruckus equipment allows SkyFii to impose ZoneDirector 3000 Smart Wi-Fi Controller, and usage limits on individual devices in terms of time each AP had to be painted to exactly match one of or data volume, but that is not currently necessary, seven heritage colours depending on the wall on said Arthur. As is the practice for most ISPs, cer- which they were mounted. tain sites are blacklisted. Cabling and wiring was performed by an in-house electrician, with the work being done out of hours The engine room to avoid inconveniencing shoppers. The installation Morel said BigAir tracks the types of devices being was completed with no visible ducts, conduits or connected, the frequency of use and session dura- cables in order to fit in with the upmarket and herit- tion, and provides daily, weekly or monthly reports age character of the centre. to SkyFii so sponsors can see the exposure they are receiving. Although Arthur expected the entire installation to take up to 12 weeks, the job was done in four The SkyFii Wi-Fi service is monitored, maintained weeks, plus another few days for setup and testing. and managed from BigAir’s network operations “We were very happy with that,” he said. centre (NOC), and the company also provides round-the-clock customer support. Morel said this The first phase of the project — at QVB and The covers everything from an individual user being Galeries — went live at the end of July 2012, and able to connect a device through to reaching a within eight weeks was serving around 1,000 users remote site. He explained that BigAir’s systems per day. Chifley Plaza and perform deep packet inspection and prioritise web were added in late September. Arthur expects to and VoIP traffic, while file downloads are handled reach more than 1,000 users per day even before on a ‘best effort’ basis. “The network delivers a the service is promoted at the centres. Current consistent and reliable performance even during network statistics show that there are in excess of peak times,” Morel said. 2,200 users per day through this network.

In addition to a ‘walled garden’ providing content relating to the centre and advertisers, the SkyFii platform also provides for the delivery of localised

page 2 Hotspot SkyFii: Queen Victoria Building

“We are delighted with “The Ruckus equipment is ‘rock solid’,” said Morel. “It never requires resetting or tinkering with configurations.” Ruckus’s ChannelFly tech- the performance of the nology automatically changes channels in order to maximise through- put, which is particularly important in dense metropolitan locations. Ruckus equipment.” The ZoneDirector was placed in the data centre to manage all the shopping centres from a single location. “This simplifies configurations and to add Wayne Arthur new APs to expand the Wi-Fi coverage,” Yamamoto said. “Additionally, the Director, SkyFii Ruckus Zone Director controllers are smart enough to identify the types of devices that are currently connected, and take into consideration whether those devices support ChannelFly. The Ruckus Speedflex wireless perfor- mance testing tool is used to check the speed especially on multiple hop AP speeds.”

Arthur said SkyFii has gained a lot from its relationship with Ruckus in terms of the enthusiasm and expertise of its people, and its experience of delivering high-quality Wi-Fi service in congested areas: “I can’t speak highly enough of Ruckus in that respect.”

Morel is similarly enthusiastic. “We’re very pleased with our decision to work with Ruckus,” he said, adding that the company uses Ruckus equipment at most of the sites it serves, as the products provide features including good range and signal penetration, support for density connections with excellent throughput, and the ability to use multiple SSIDs with each access point. This allows a site to be covered with fewer access points, resulting in more cost-effective systems. “Choosing Ruckus was a great decision,” he said.

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