When we go somewhere we all have that expectation that we can “just use your WIFI” so its only natural that when the a customer asks do you have WIFI, you want to be able to say yes and thats a yes with confidence.
Thats a good thing; and you know that can be the one reason why they chose to come to your business.
Those customers are using what is known as a “Guest Network” also guest networks can be wired as well as wireless. That's how hotels allow you “plug in” your laptop.
What is a guest network?
A guest or public network is part of your network that you allow members of the public to use, the key part is “part” as you can imagine allowing unknown people onto your network where they can see your computers, point of sale, card readers etc would be a very bad thing.
So if your anything like me when you here this statement,
The guest WIFI?, I printed the code from the back of the router on the menu.
you feel shivers and know that actually the business will be losing customers - No one wants to use a card machine that is on an unsecure network even if it is safe, which it isn't.
This is known as segregation, but there is another term you may have heard of that's called isolation - to be a guest network you must have both.
Isolation sounds like what you want to do to keep people away from other people, you isolate them. Well it's the same thing but for client devices, They are all isolated from each other.
Seems like a strange thing to worry about? But what it does is really important - it protects your clients from other clients, The last thing you want is a customer who won't come back because they realised they were hacked at your business.
How can I help?
There is a lot more than that to consider, you need to ensure there is enough bandwidth available for all your clients, and yet you also need to restrict how much bandwidth each client can use.
Help and advice, You have questions and just want someone to answer them.
Assessment - While it's true that I can tell, just like bad people can tell what your situation is just by looking you want to know.
Make it happen - May be what you have works, may be it doesn't, either way It can be made to happen.