What happens when the front door isn’t working?

Front Gate Connectivity and Access Issues

As a managed service provider to many customers in the MH and RV resort space, we often receive requests to assist them with a number of other issues at their communities unrelated to the primary services we are performing in managing their IT infrastructure, securing their endpoints, and providing help desk support.   Assisting our customers with issues related to their outdoor Wi-Fi, security cameras and access gates are just some of the fun projects we get involved with.

Recently we received a request to assist a customer with their newly installed front gate.  The gate company our customer used installed a wireless bridge for connectivity, but because the signal was so weak the gate malfunctioned and they had to leave it open all the time, thus defeating the purpose of the front to begin with.    After a quick walk-through of the site we determined the primary issue was that trees surrounding the gate were obstructing the line of sight between two wireless bridge radios. To resolve the problem, we installed a second wireless bridge to redirect the signal around the trees. Also, we had their maintenance crew trim back the trees as well.  

The scope of work performed included the following:

1)    Removed the NanoBeam bridge radio from the gate and replaced it with the bridge radio from the second NanoBeam wireless bridge set. 

2)    Attached an external enclosure to the light pole that has line-of-sight to both the gate and the office.

3)    Mounted the new AP and original bridge NanoBeam on the light pole. The new AP NanoBeam now points toward the entrance gate, while the bridge NanoBeam is pointed toward the main office.

4)    Realigned the AP NanoBeam on the office building, pointing it towards the light pole.

5)    Installed the equipment.

6)    Logged into the NanoBeams to confirm connectivity and analyzed the available bandwidth. Results: The wireless link between the office and the light pole now has a strong signal. The wireless link between the light pole and gate is reliable, with 35Mbps available bandwidth.

7)    A few tree branches needed to be trimmed back to create a better line of sight between the NanoBeams.  This is a maintenance item that needs to be addressed periodically, at least once a year, or when connectivity issues arise.

8)    The gate now operates with the current wireless connection

9)    Tested the connection to the NanoBeam mounted at the gate: PASSED

We love helping customers resolve the issues that arise in their communities and being the “go-to” resource for anything tech related.    We get to know our customers even more, gain a deeper understanding of their operations and the challenges that arise in managing their properties while giving them peace of mind there is someone to turn to that they can trust to keep their business running smoothly and efficiently.