Deutsche Telekom – HotSpot Plug’n’Play

Überblick

Deutsche Telekom (DT) is one of the world’s leading integrated telecommunications companies, with some 156 million mobile customers, 29 million fixed-network lines, and more than 18 million broadband lines. Deutsche Telekom is present in more than 50 countries. With a staff of some 225,200 employees throughout the world, DT generated revenues of 69.2 billion Euros in financial year 2015.

Much of DT’s extraordinary success can be attributed to their active pursuit of new growth opportunities, which has seen them evolve from their roots as a traditional telephone company. One such area that has been identified for growth is consumer demand and expectation for guest WiFi.

Consumer businesses are now judged not only on whether WiFi is available but also on the performance of it. In particular, small to medium businesses such as coffee shops and restaurants are struggling to live up to these expectations, often with limited or no dedicated IT personnel.

In Germany, there has been an additional burden for businesses bearing the liability for their guest’s WiFi usage. Therefore, in addition to lack of dedicated IT staff, there is an added barrier for small to medium businesses offering guest WiFi.

In order to address the unique guest WiFi needs of small to medium businesses in Germany, DT has launched a service called HotSpot Plug’n’Play, which utilizes the Cisco Meraki cloud managed networking architecture.

HotSpot Plug’n’Play is supported by 100% cloud managed Cisco Meraki wireless access points. Cisco Meraki APs allow DT to massively improve operational efficiency by remotely deploying and managing the HotSpot at customer sites with configuration achieved via a web browser. With the Cisco Meraki architecture, DT can get thousands of customers online with HotSpot Plug’n’Play in days, as opposed to the months that one would normally associate with a deployment of that scale using more traditional on-premise architectures.

For businesses such as small restaurants, HotSpot Plug’n’Play allows them to provide their guests with high quality WiFi without the burden of any IT overhead. The business owner simply pays a flat monthly rate for DT to fully manage the guest WiFi, and it can be live on-site in only the time it takes to ship an access point.

Getting a new business online with HotSpot Plug’n’Play is incredibly simple. The business is shipped a Cisco Meraki wireless access point to plug into their existing or new DT-provided router. DT’s efficiency is increased and costs reduced, as they do not need to send anyone on-site to get the customer site live with HotSpot Plug’n’Play. The Cisco Meraki AP configures itself, so in a matter of seconds after being plugged in, the AP tunnels a secure connection to the cloud and starts broadcasting guest WiFi. Meraki enables ongoing maintenance and troubleshooting, such as live packet captures, to be carried out remotely, further increasing efficiency and lowering costs.

The Cisco Meraki AP routes the guest traffic completely separately from the business’s own network, which means the business is now free from the responsibility of the usage on the guest WiFi. To use the WiFi, guests simply access the Deutsche Telekom website displayed via a splash page, without having to go through any cumbersome login process.