Digital communication is at the forefront of modern business in 2025 and having the right network infrastructure for your business is essential to ensure effective day to day operations and ensure the best opportunities to maximise profits as your business develops. WiFi networks are a quick and easy solution to keeping employees connected in a working environment; whether you manage an office, warehouse, shopfront or other commercial space, having a stable wifi connection allows your employees to share information quickly and effectively. There are a number of potential WiFi challenges in commercial units you’ll want to be aware of when thinking about installing a brand new WiFi set up in your business or if you’re looking to upgrade your current system. We’ve highlighted some of the more common problems you might find with your business’ WiFi installation and picked out some solutions that can help you to guarantee your commercial space has a stable and high capacity wifi network.
Dead Zones and Inconsistent Coverage
In larger commercial spaces, certain areas; corners, basements, external locations or rooms separated by thick walls, can often suffer from weak or non-existent WiFi signals. This can cause errors in vital equipment that requires a constant internet connection, such as scanning guns or digital communication devices, which can lead to lower productivity and employee effectiveness in those areas. Dead zones can limit your business’ capacity to expand, affecting where you can locate office spaces, computer terminals or other digital machines or equipment.
Solutions
- WiFi Site Survey, conducting a site specific WiFi survey can help you to identify areas of limited connectivity within your commercial space, allowing you to account for them in future plans or take active steps to resolve Wifi Dead Zones
- Extend your hardware, creating additional access points by using a series of routers or WiFI extenders can allow you to extend your central WiFi signal, improving coverage in otherwise inaccessible areas.
- Line of sight placement, sometimes obstacles affecting the WiFi signal cannot be removed or circumvented, in this case you must plan expansions to your business carefully, ensuring that equipment is placed in areas with a good line of sight to the nearest network hub or router.
Overcrowded Networks
High employee density and a large number of connected devices can cause congestion, leading to slower speeds and frequent disconnects. As your business expands you might find that your preexisting network becomes unsuitable for purpose, providing an unstable connection and frequently crashing due to higher usage demands than it was designed for. These are common WiFi challenges in commercial units, and having an unstable network can lead to decreased productivity, low quality customer service and poor internal communication between employees.
Solutions
- Segment the network in Virtual LANs, by separating your network into different virtual spaces you can ensure that employees have access to more bandwidth and the stable connection they need to perform their job roles. Limiting the network access of guests allows you to safeguards the needs of your business and operating separate VLANs for dedicated equipment can guarantee its functionality and security.
- Dualband or triband routers, modern networking equipment can automatically spread your network usage across multiple channels to ensure a regular and stable connection for numerous employees simultaneously .
- Upgrade to WiFi 6, if you’re looking to future-proof your business’ communications network then upgrading to a WiFi 6 installation will keep you at the cutting edge of technology. Modern routers provide a higher capacity, higher velocity network with a more consistent and stable connection.
Interference from Other Devices
Certain other devices can affect the stability of your commercial WiFi network; microwaves, cordless phones, Bluetooth devices and other WiFi networks can all interfere with WiFi Signals.
Solutions
- Retire out of date equipment, most modern commercial electronics are designed to function without interfering with WiFi networks, if you find an electronic device in your commercial space is disrupting nearby signals it is probably time to replace it with a newer piece of tech.
- Use 5ghz frequencies, used more often in commercial units WiFi equipment that runs at 5ghz is much less prone to interference as it operates on a frequency less commonly used by day to day devices. Committing to a 5ghz installation in your commercial enterprise is a great way to ensure scalability as your business expands in the future.
- Channel Planning, manually assign channels to different sections of the network, or different equipment, to ensure that they have a constant and dedicated connection to the network with minimal interference from other machines or external networks.
Security Risks
With the increased connectivity of an effective WiFi network comes the increased risk of security breaches. The larger your unit and your WiFi network, the more routers or more connection points, the more exposed your network is to malicious actors.
Solutions
- Implement WPA3 Encryption, replacing WPA2 as the standard for WiFi networks, WPA3 shows how essential it is to keep your WiFi infrastructure up to date. Much harder to access remotely and offering enhanced security features equipping your commercial unit with the most up to date technology can massively boost security across your network.
- Operate strong security protocols, one of the weakest elements of any digital network are the people who use it, train your staff in effective security protocols such as strong passwords that are regularly changed and anti-phishing training that prevents security leaks. By ensuring good practice by employees with access to the network you can maintain a stronger and more secure closed network for your business.
- Enforce guest network isolation, by limiting guest access to your WiFi network via digital protocols and VLANs you can prevent malicious actors from gaining unrestricted access to your business’ network and files. When it comes to guaranteeing the security of your business’ WiFI network, picking an experienced firm such as Black Glass Communications for your installation and maintenance can give you confidence that your business is secure and well looked after.
Bandwidth Management
Handling large amounts of day to day traffic as well as managing the transfer and storage of larger project files; the bandwidth demands on a commercial network can be heavy. With essential services needing continual and stable connections it’s important to make sure that bandwidth issues don’t affect the everyday demands of your business.
Solutions
- Use Quality of Service settings to ensure that essential equipment or networks receive priority during network congestion. This can guarantee access to emails or higher quality video calls or ensure that certain equipment that requires an internet connection is always online. Prioritising connection to different sectors of your business can make sure that bandwidth issues have a minimal effect on operations and productivity
- Monitor network usage, identify bottlenecks and bandwidth heavy devices to make sure that your internet connection is being distributed and utilised effectively throughout your commercial unit.
- Upgrade internet plan, if you are experiencing continual bandwidth issues that are affecting the daily operations of your business then it may be time to consider upgrading your commercial internet plan, consider the needs of your business now and in the future and contact your internet provider to negotiate an upgrade.
Scalability Issues
Something that might not seem like a problem now, such as operating just under the max bandwidth capacity of your network, can quickly become much bigger issues in the future. These kinds of WiFi challenges in commercial units highlight why making sure your business’ network capabilities are not just effective now but also in the future is a great way to make potential growth seamless and smooth.
Solutions
Invest in scalable business-grade infrastructure, we have a number of guides that can help you ensure the scalability of your current commercial network installation, whether is is 5Ghz equipment, WPA3 encryption, or full fibre optics, having the right installation for you not only now but into the future is the best way to take advantage of any opportunities the future might hold for you and your business.
Having a high-capacity and stable WiFi connection can make all the difference to effectively operating as a modern business. Now you’re aware of some of the pitfalls and solutions that come with WiFi challenges in commercial units, you might want to contact the professionals. Black Glass Communications are experts in making sure you get the perfect commercial networking solution for you, big or small, hi-tech or standard, we offer a helpful and friendly service with effective results.
