GoZone Wi-Fi is bridging the divide in their community in St. Petersburg, Florida. “In October of 2018, GoZone began working with The EDGE District, a downtown
district in St. Petersburg, on a plan to create a district-wide Wi-Fi network”, said Todd Myers, CEO of GoZone WiFi. “The EDGE Wi-Fi network aims to provide pervasive Wi-Fi connectivity to residents and visitors as they visit locations throughout our vibrant district, as well as promote and connect local businesses to the community.”
Guest Wi-Fi access in the area was limited and complicated for visitors in the EDGE District. In addition, the low-income and underserved areas surrounding the EDGE District had limited access to Wi-Fi. The project aimed to benefit four specific groups of stakeholders
in the community:
“We wanted to achieve two key goals,” said Myers. “First, we aimed to bridge the digital divide for residents of St. Petersburg who lacked adequate internet access by creating a free resource within the city. Our second objective was equally important: we wanted to help local businesses
GoZone had a vision for widespread, easy-to-use guest Wi-Fi access throughout the EDGE District. They wanted to provide service to the district’s visitors in public spaces as well as provide easier access to low-income residents. “We wanted to deploy the network as a
community-driven project,” said Elizabeth Weddle, Director of Marketing, GoZone. “The network was funded through sponsorship dollars and deployed using existing business networks.” No taxpayer dollars were used to bring this vision to life. Stakeholders included local businesses, residents, advertisers, and the EDGE Business Association.
GoZone deployed the Cambium Networks cnPilot™ e400 enterprise indoor and e500 enterprise outdoor Wi-Fi access points. GoZone WiFi’s software platforms are being used to drive added value for the stakeholders:
These applications are powering marketing and advertising campaigns as well as detailed location analytics reporting. Using Cambium Networks‘ cnPilot hardware and GoZone’s platforms, the network was able to meet the needs of each stakeholder within the community. This brought guest Wi-Fi access to indoor and outdoor locations throughout the district and helped to bridge the digital divide in the St. Petersburg community.
The installation work itself was completed by the GoZone team, and local businesses were trained on the Wi-Fi marketing platform. The EDGE District was able to apply branding to the splash and redirect pages, while automated emails were sent to all guests.
“When launching a community-wide network, it’s very important to get involvement from the entire community, including the local businesses that will need to provide physical space for APs and the ISP connectivity. Choose a hardware AND Saas combination that will satisfy the needs of ALL of the community participants,” said Weddle.
“This deployment is still in early phases,” said Weddle. “The entire network is currently supporting about 1,200-1,500 connections per month, growing month over month.”
Local businesses are now able to access powerful marketing tools including splash page branding and loyalty marketing campaigns. Since removing passwords and a high-friction login process, local businesses have saved staff time. They can also control the guest experience with session, upload speed, and download speed limits.
Advertisers have been able to target the audience in the EDGE District with specific campaigns. The Advertising landing page has an average of 1,087 impressions per month, with a 2.3% click through rate (CTR).
Visitors are now able to easily access guest Wi-Fi throughout the district without friction (passwords, unique SSIDs, etc.).
“The EDGE District Wi-Fi network has sent 1,050 monthly emails to Wi-Fi guests promoting local businesses, sponsors, and EDGE District initiatives, with a 21% read rate,” said Weddle. “These emails effectively drive guests back into local businesses and create awareness around local community initiatives. Local businesses have seen a reduction in staff time spent handing out passwords by allowing their customers to easily access Wi-Fi through the EDGE network.”
As more devices are enabled with WiFi6 (802.llax), Cambium Networks will enhance the equipment to support that new standard which will allow the network to scale exponentially.