Here’s a hypothetical for you: At home, would you rather have electricity or Wi-Fi internet? It’s not necessarily a "chicken or the egg" scenario with today’s advanced wireless solutions. On this episode of Broadband Linkup by Promptlink Communications, host Sean Heath sat down with Chris Boring, Promptlink’s vice president of sales and marketing, to discuss all things Wi-Fi.

The scope of services is evolving for internet service providers, who have gone from basic “utility” companies to offering full-service, white-glove assistance for its customers upon request.

“If they’re providing internet and the internet is slow, they’ll get blamed even if the real problem is the wi-fi router that the customer bought from Best Buy,” Boring said. “So they figure, why not go all in, provide wi-fi services, and connect all those devices in the home?”

ISP offerings range from leased Wi-Fi routers, to in-home Wi-Fi surveys, to complete suites of Wi-Fi devices that link together to create a managed service. This helps alleviate the pain points for both consumers and ISPs, Boring said.

Another pain point for service providers is managing device qualification in the home and ensuring device connectivity each and every time. While providers have devices tested and certified to work in laboratories, routers with possibly different versions of firmware can cause unexpected incompatibility when produced en masse and then deployed to homes.

“When customers try to connect to Wi-Fi from so many different devices and each of those devices has its own characteristics, that’s a challenge,” Boring said. In fact, the average home has over nine connected devices via Wi-Fi.

With these challenges, white glove services are helpful for less-technologically adept customers and represent some of the many ways Wi-Fi is integrating into our lives more every day.