What to ask before you buy managed Wi-Fi

Six questions worth asking

1. What happens when the subscription ends?

Some managed network products stop being a network when the contract does. Ask explicitly whether the equipment keeps routing traffic if you stop paying, and get the answer in writing. A smart network gateway that becomes a brick on renewal day is a rental with extra steps.

2. What happens when the vendor's cloud is unreachable?

A cloud-managed system that cannot enforce its own rules while the cloud is down has moved your network's dependency somewhere you cannot see or fix. Ask what the device does on its own.

3. How long will it receive updates?

A managed WiFi router that stops receiving security updates in three years is a security problem you have agreed to buy. Ask for the duration, and ask whether security updates and new features have the same term. They often do not.

4. Can it tell people apart, or only devices?

Anything built on hardware addresses is already fighting modern phones, which randomise them. Ask what happens when one person has three devices, and what happens when that person leaves.

5. Who can see individual activity?

An owner or administrator needs totals, health and fair-use position. That is different from seeing an individual's browsing, and a system that does not distinguish the two is a problem waiting for a complaint. Ask where detailed activity is stored and what leaves the building.

6. What happens if the vendor stops trading?

Rarely asked, and the answer is usually silence. It is worth asking anyway, because the answer tells you how much of what you are buying is actually yours.

Where EWUS stands on these

These are the questions EWUS is built to answer plainly rather than the ones it is built to avoid. The commitments are published rather than negotiated per deal, and the ones still awaiting legal wording are marked as such on the site rather than presented as settled.