Many gateway devices support the ability to have multiple SSID’s, one for guests and a separate “private” network that can be enabled for managers or owners of a venue to use without getting a splash page.
From a sales stand-point, this is a great feature that you can enable for your clients. It will allow the managers, owners, or staff members to connect to the private network without the need to login on the splash page. This can be a great feature to make the client more “sticky” and reliant on your services as well.
From a support stand-point, consider this: by enabling a second SSID for private access, the network now becomes MUCH more important to keep operational while the venue is open for business. In addition, many clients will use the private network to connect other devices like jukeboxes, music systems, TV systems, printers, and even point of sale devices. There are a couple things here to consider from a business-perspective:
- There will be more data traversing your equipment. If the traffic is too heavy for the equipment, then the guest experience may be impacted resulting in complaints.
- If the 3rd party devices are not configured correctly or there’s a problem with your equipment, then their business operations may be impacted resulting in after-hour or weekend support calls.
As an alternative, you may want to recommend that they use a separate WiFi router, such as the one that is built-in to their cable/DSL router to route private traffic.