The demand for retail stores, restaurants, office buildings, public buildings and venues to offer paid or free Wi-Fi Internet access continues to explode. 

 

In fact, many companies and buildings are opting to rely on commercial grade Wi-Fi installations for their LAN needs, instead of traditional CAT5 cable-based LANs, according to Russ Maney (News - Alert), principal and co-founder of Xponential Group, a Louisville, Ky.-based technology procurement services company that represents Contingent.

 

Contingent – a  global IT services company specializing in managed secure wide area networks, integration, logistics and maintenance for large enterprises – was approached by Pomeroy IT Solutions, who had been chosen by Barnes and Noble and SBC to design and implement the Wi-Fi project.

 

Pomeroy then gave Contingent responsibility for installation of the edge router, wireless access points and cabling in 48 states; within two weeks, they were in full production.

 

According to company officials, Contingent’s management team assessed the scope of work and documentation and created project risk and control management plans to ensure the successful flow and execution of the project.

 

SBC shipped their Cisco (News - Alert) 1100 and 1200 series wireless access points to Contingent’s Cincinnati staging facility and from there they were tested and kitted by Contingent’s logistic team and distributed to the 436 locations across North America.

 

The primary task was for Contingent to deploy SBC-powered wireless access points in Barnes and Noble’s 463 locations in the café and seating areas. But, before each installation, a readiness assessment and circuit evaluation was performed by Contingent field engineers. Those assessments revealed that the existing Wi-Fi in 170 locations had to be de-installed before Freedom Link could be installed. Company officials said that Contingent performed the deinstallations without disrupting the schedule.

 

Within two days, after each installation was completed, Contingent provided Barnes and Noble with a completed site check list signed by the onsite point of contact as well as a RF coverage map of the location. Ultimately, Contingent completed the Freedom Link Wi-Fi installation project in 38 business days, according to company officials.

 

Contingent installed commercial grade Wi-Fi infrastructures in 463 Barnes and Noble locations in 38 business days – including uninstalling old equipment in 170 of those locations – which equals more than a dozen installations a day. 

 

“This clearly shows that Contingent is the leading WiFi (News - Alert) installation company in the country, particularly for large, distributed enterprises,” said Maney. “And, when combined with their EverWorX WAN service and their WAN security offerings, Contingent is actually the leading integrated  and secure WAN, LAN and WiFi provider in the data, voice and video networking services provider market.”

 

The Cincinnati, Ohio-based company specializes in a variety of information technology services focused primarily on design, deployment and management of wide area network and local area network infrastructure. Contingent itself is not a carrier, a reseller or an agent but a “managed services provider” that is technology, vendor, and carrier neutral, according to company officials.

 

Last month, Contingent Network Services announced that it secured a multi-million dollar contract to deploy its EverWorX managed wide area network service at more than 500 Bob Evans locations across the country.