Fool-Proofing Rental Housing: Community Wi-Fi is the Game-Changer

Solutions Review’s Contributed Content Series is a collection of contributed articles written by thought leaders in enterprise software categories. Lucas Haldeman of SmartRent connects into why community Wi-Fi is an IoT game changer for housing technology.

Our day-to-day lives have become increasingly digital, making access to continuous, reliable, and seamless internet vital. There have been significant improvements in connectivity for consumers, retailers, and residential homes through the availability of fiber and 5G. Yet, only one percent of renters have the connectivity they really want and need with uninterrupted Wi-Fi service. Considering there are more than 100 million apartment renters nationwide, the digital divide is steep.

Despite varied speeds and features, residents are often forced to pay a premium for the best internet available to them. This recurring issue has resulted in unmet renters’ expectations and growing frustration. For rental housing operators to answer the evolving connectivity needs of today’s renter base while also preparing for future technological innovations, it is essential that they understand renter preferences, current market internet solutions, and how advanced services can benefit all end-users in the long term.

Fool-Proofing Rental Housing: Community Wi-Fi is the Game-Changer

Current Connectivity Landscape

Today’s rental housing market typically has three internet service models, each with its own benefits and challenges:

• Retail: Direct to consumer. Residents establish their own service and billing. Service is limited to apartment homes only.
• Bulk: An agreement between the property and the internet provider. Property sells the service to residents as part of an amenity package or included in rent. Service is limited to apartment homes only.
• Managed Wi-Fi: An agreement between the property and internet provider. Third-party Wi-Fi networks throughout the community and apartment homes. Residents are billed similarly to bulk agreements. Internet service is available throughout the community but on multiple networks, requiring different logins.

New advancements in the managed Wi-Fi model are proving to be a game-changer in multifamily internet connectivity. Community Wi-Fi expands the performance, reliability, and security of managed Wi-Fi by offering residents a private network and the ability to access that password-protected network throughout the community.

Investment in community Wi-Fi is widening as a growing number of multifamily operators, and owners realize its value not only as an amenity when offered directly to residents but also as a means to optimize their teams and technology stack and quickly integrate new solutions.

How Community Wi-Fi Changes the Game

Rental housing must closely monitor consumer trends and find ways to implement solutions that meet those trends. For instance, think about how easily the internet is connected in homes today. Gone are the days spent waiting through a four-hour window for the cable person to arrive. Now, homeowners can activate their modems immediately and with little outside assistance, getting themselves and their smart devices online almost instantaneously. Why is the same ease of experience not readily available for apartment renters?

Innovations in rental housing connectivity – from hardware to software – now grant immediate Wi-Fi access to residents moving in, allowing users to get connected as soon as they walk into their apartment homes. Conversely, the system can also revoke access when a resident moves out. Solutions like community Wi-Fi enable users to connect to their own private networks via a standard SSID and password, regardless of the access point in the community. Residents now have more flexibility to work remotely throughout their communities, greater ability to use personal entertainment devices and systems like gaming and video streaming, and the ability to optimize their in-unit smart home package.

When we look at property operations and the value of community-wide Wi-Fi connectivity, the opportunities for improvement become relatively limitless. The adoption of proptech has exploded in the last five years, with the pandemic serving as a massive catalyst for this evolution. With reliable and robust Wi-Fi across apartment communities, the industry can adopt more proptech in such areas as access control, mobile work management, centralization, self-guided touring, and smart home. Optimizing these technologies creates efficiencies across the board, which translate into improved net operating income (NOI) and greater return on investment (ROI).

The Inherent Need for Better Connectivity

Community Wi-Fi is becoming highly desirable, with Wi-Fi access often acting as a deciding factor when residents select a new community. Modern residents are prioritizing and demanding reliable, high-performance internet at an affordable price, with the internet playing a crucial role in their quality of life and living experiences.

Property owners can also generate additional revenues through community Wi-Fi since bulk agreements and managed Wi-Fi can be converted into new revenue streams. The specifics of their arrangements with service providers and financing agreements vary, but many can recoup in as little as two to three years. With this new revenue stream, property owners can fund other high-value initiatives.

Communities with community Wi-Fi are both accessible and offer connection speeds that are not always available within the current rental housing market. This makes communities with community Wi-Fi more attractive to residents and increases asset value.

Fool-Proofing the Future

As with any new technology, implementing a new internet solution, like community Wi-Fi, requires due diligence, communication, and the right provider-partner. When choosing a partner, it is essential to ask questions like how large their coverage footprint is, whether they can scale to meet the property’s needs, how the network is installed and tested, what the resident experience looks like, and what happens if something goes wrong. This ensures that property owners choose a successful, scalable solution for their residents and their property’s specific needs.

Multifamily properties have a considerable opportunity to deliver community Wi-Fi to their residents. There is a long-standing unmet need for reliable and fast internet that supports the modern connected lifestyle and a strong demand among residents for community Wi-Fi. Community Wi-Fi offers a variety of benefits at a reasonable price point, offering those who otherwise may not be connected the opportunity to always be on-network anywhere on the property.

Before implementing community Wi-Fi, property owners must consider all of their options and carefully plan to ensure the best results, including understanding the local competition from retail internet service and the capabilities and offerings of their partners. As the rental housing industry continues to transform and shift, investing in community Wi-Fi now lays a strong foundation for the future.