SMARTER OPERATIONS he demand for dependable, high-speed internet is greater than ever. Between the rise of hybrid and remote work, stream-ing services, smart home technology, security systems and more, the internet has become an important aspect of the average American’s daily life. “Wi-Fi connectivity has been called the fourth utility, alongside water, electricity and gas,” explains Dan Myers, president and CEO of DojoNetworks, an internet service provider headquartered in State College, Pennsylvania. “Most residents engage with their internet more often than they touch any other utility in their homes. Everything from streaming audio to video gaming to email — they’re touching that more than their heat or electricity. And if it’s not working, they know about it instantly.” Data from the National Multifamily Hous-ing Council’s 2024 NMHC and Grace Hill Renter Preferences Survey Report found that today’s renters are especially tech-oriented and tend to look for features that are indicative of a mobile and connected lifestyle. Renters had strong in-terest in Wi-Fi as an amenity, with a notable 86 percent of the 172,703 respondents surveyed reporting high-speed internet as being either very important or absolutely essential. With an increasingly mobile workforce and the cultural expectation that Wi-Fi be readily available no matter the time or location, many property owners and operators have begun to consider property-wide, managed Wi-Fi solu-tions through third-party vendors. “Managed Wi-Fi is appealing as an amenity because of the amount of people who have ex-perienced the pitfalls of the traditional model,” says Mike Womack, vice president of partner sales at Nomadix, a Woodland Hills, Califor-nia-based developer of network solutions. “Managed Wi-Fi sets up a network throughout the property to provide seamless and secure connectivity, similar to what we experience with our mobile networks.” Why Managed Wi-Fi? In 2022, The Breeden Co. nished constructing The Lofts at Front Street, a 258-unit complex in Norfolk, Va. The community offers pre-installed Wi-Fi through COX. 18 | Southeast Multifamily & Affordable Housing Business | January/February 2024 Internet connectivity in multifamily com-munities has traditionally been a bring-your-own model in which residents are responsible for acquiring and setting up their own Wi-Fi router. In contrast, a managed Wi-Fi network is typi-cally owned by the property owner or opera-tor but installed and managed by a third-party vendor. The network will usually be cloud-based and made up of multiple wireless ac-cess points (devices that create a local area net-work, enabling other devices to connect to the internet). Ideally, the network would have the bandwidth to be able to support many devices at the same time. Managed Wi-Fi tends to avert many of the operational issues that come with the “bring-your-own” model. For instance, when you have too many Wi-Fi networks too close to each other, those networks tend to interact with each other. This can impact their performance. Additionally, the responsibility for establish-ing and maintaining the Wi-Fi infrastructure and security, as well as fi elding resident sup-port calls, will typically fall to the third-party internet service provider (ISP). This frees up managerial and maintenance staff and can be included in the resident’s rent or billed extra as a utility fee or as a technology package. However, outsourcing management services for the network does represent a loss of direct control for property owners and managers. Consequently, it’s important to choose a re-liable and responsive ISP. The largest ISPs in the U.S. include AT&T Internet Services, Cen-turyLink, Charter Communications, Xfi nity, Frontier Communications, Verizon and more, according to the Legal Information Institute at the Cornell Law School. www.MultifamilyAffordableHousing.com
Southeast Multifamily & Affordable Housing Business January / February 2024: Page 18
