- Users per month: 25,000
- Total Area: 170K sq. ft.
- Retail Units: 191
- Shopping Mall
- Guest WiFi
- Indoor/outdoor WiFi Roaming
- Branded User Experience Portal
- Bandwidth Management
- 24/7 NOC Services
Dubai Retail, the Retail management arm of Dubai holding, focuses on developing, operating and managing the retail assets across prime destinations and communities. Dubai Retail partnered with EZELINK for high capacity indoor/outdoor wireless coverage and branded user experience for their prime retail project of Bay Avenue, located in the convenient and popular district of Business Bay.
Bay Avenue is a unique retail destination within the thriving Business Bay district. It serves a community of over 25,000 people living and working in the Executive Towers, covers more than 170,000 square feet across two levels, 191 retail and F&B outlets including cafes, restaurants, shops and essential community amenities.
The solution is fully managed and supported by the EZELINK, 24/7 helpdesk to deal with any end user technical queries. The project is delivered on a short turnaround during the most challenging time. After delivery also ran post installation audits, optimization testing, and made the rectifications
The key challenges during the project were outdoor installation on the façade to cover walkway outside the mall, work permits and strict timing as per the mall management guidelines. The project carried out during the high risk time of Coronavirus (COVID-19) to prevent the employee’s exposure and contamination of work environment high level of safety measures taken until the completion of the project.
To install WiFi across such a vast site, covering indoor and outdoor areas was a significant challenge. With more and more people using smartphones and tablets, the project was designed to give visitors of Bay Avenue easy access to online services. A branded captive portal that will promote the brand, along with gathering information about visitors which could be used for marketing purposes. The private WiFi With more than 191 retail outlets, almost all shop owners create private Wi-Fi hotspots for themselves, creating heavy wireless interference throughout the mall. The free public WiFi solution must be able to be readily available without competing with or interrupting these private networks, and vice-versa.
EZELINK initiated the work with a detailed site survey, providing a thorough analysis of the wireless environment, the existing IT infrastructure, and the architectural structure of Bay Avenue. The analysis confirmed the challenges, including the competing private networks throughout the building. Considering these requirements, the report concluded that ceiling-mounted EZELINK AC600P access points for indoor coverage and outdoor EZELINK AC1350 access points and Managed PoE+ Switches would provide an ideal solution.
The Mall WiFi network was deployed with 32 indoor access points and 14 outdoor access points to cover the outdoor area. EZEMALL solution, specifically designed for shopping malls and commercial areas, was deployed to obtain customer insights, capturing user interests and contact information, giving the mall management an opportunity to target its customers with exclusive special offers and promotions.