How connectivity can disrupt industries to underpin economic growth

Connectivity is laying the foundations for one of the most significant shifts in society in generations. With innovation up for grabs, how can organisations across a multitude of industries understand and harness these new opportunities enabled by connectivity? In education, retail, hospitality and healthcare we’re seeing a number of diverse use cases that are helping others put their own future connectivity plans in place.

Connecting campuses

For universities, the concept of the smart campus has grown tremendously over the last few years, evolving far beyond connecting individual buildings and ensuring high-speed wired, or wireless, connectivity inside lecture halls and libraries. Today, the connected campus features a ubiquitous hybrid network that encompasses the whole estate, coupling students and staff inside and out to the resources, applications and systems for life, work and learning.

With students expecting complete and easy access to information, data and applications whether they’re working on campus or at home, investing to ensure the connectivity and secure delivery of data across the network will be a critical next step for many universities competing to offer the best student experience.

CLICK TO TWEET: CommScope's Eric Law explains that from 5G to Wi-Fi 6, we’re on the cusp of speeds, capacity and opportunities never previously available.

Enabling retailers

Often considered a forward-thinking industry when it comes to technological advancements, many retail organisations today are committed to constantly innovating to improve their customer experience, much of which is underpinned by connectivity. One such example is Belgian shoe retailer, Torfs. With more than 80 stores across the country, it needed to be able to provide seamless and speedy access to Wi-Fi for customers in-store, but was hindered by the legacy technology’s requirement to configure each store’s connection individually.

Torfs deployed a cloud solution that could manage connectivity across all outlets from one device, as well as enabling those in individual stores to refine and adjust their individual configurations using a simple mobile app.

The retailer is using Wi-Fi in order to provide connectivity for customers when in-store, as well as connecting scanners and infrastructure to enable store managers to track and manage inventories seamlessly. It has also future-proofed the stores as they consider deployments in tech such as the Internet of Things (IoT) to further enhance the customer experience for shoppers. Check out this video for more details:

Creating the best guest experience

If hotel guests can’t get a strong, consistent wireless connection – for all their devices and multimedia applications, everywhere on the property – they won’t be coming back. Not surprisingly, the hospitality industry is going through a transformation that includes new opportunities to streamline operations and offer new services to guests. Here’s a quote from one of our partners:

“Some of the world’s most prominent five-star hotels have tapped into Ruckus Networks technology to enhance the experience for business users,” said Sami Mansi, regional managing director for Middle East, Africa and Turkey at InterTouch. “Seamless connectivity and the best network infrastructure is a baseline requirement for luxury hotels that cater to business guests while managing thousands of connections during peak periods.”

Supporting clinicians

Efficient communication in a hospital literally saves lives. With a pressing need to connect doctors, nurses, patients and equipment as they move quickly throughout typically large and often convoluted facilities, hospitals have been pioneers in using wireless for connectivity. Initially, doctors used pagers to stay connected with nurses who needed them. Then came the use of smartphones for communication, underpinned by tech such as distributed antenna systems (DAS).

Today, with the developments of tech such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and the number of devices used within a hospital on the rise, hospitals will need more bandwidth than they can get out of legacy Wi-Fi and DAS infrastructure.

A connected future

Whether we’re at home, work or on the go, we expect connectivity to deliver. From 5G to Wi-Fi 6, we’re on the cusp of speeds, capacity and opportunities never previously available.

Our partners are a key part of this story. Check out this video for more on how CommScope is helping our partners drive innovation in Europe: