Talk to any estate agent or realtor (depending where you live) and they’ll tell you that location is the most important thing when it comes to selling property. Is it a nice area? Is it easy to get to? Does it have good access? Decent restaurants nearby?
If you’ve got the right location, you’ll have eager buyers queuing up, quite literally, at your door.
What the agent won’t talk to you about is security. They won’t ask you about your window locks, how long you think it might take to kick that nice shiny front door off its hinges, or (unless you’re in Hollywood) whether you’ve got a panic room with a ten-inch steel casing in your basement.
That doesn’t mean security’s unimportant. Far from it; some people might hark back to the days when you could leave your door unlocked without concern, but nobody really wants to test human nature like that today. Security is very important to home buyers but it’s just one element of an entire package that gets weighed as people contemplate tying themselves down to a 30-year mortgage.
But it’s always location that comes out on top.
When you’ve moved in, and you do start thinking about security, you’re unlikely to start wiring alarms, fitting cameras, pressure pads, and remote locking devices. What you’ll do is call in the experts, let the people who understand it solve the problem so you don’t have to.
So why am I talking about all this? Because there are clear parallels when it comes to Wi-Fi. Last month Devicescape launched a new component to the Devicescape Service Platform called Safetynet Curator. You can read about it here but, briefly, it’s an auto-VPN solution that further enhances the security already built into our Curated Virtual Network of amenity Wi-Fi locations.
Devices with Safetynet Curator installed will spin up a VPN every time they connect to the internet using one of our CVN amenity Wi-Fi locations. It’s fully automated and unobtrusive, so users may not even notice. Those who do will see a little symbol in the upper part of the device display that lets them know the connection is secure.
We developed this element of the platform because there are many users, and some operators, who feel that public Wi-Fi is inherently risky. And while you could argue indefinitely about the true extent of the security threat it’s important to have a response (I should point out that Devicescape already prequalifies and monitors CVN locations for security reliability).
But there are also many users who care a lot more about the other aspects of Wi-Fi and — crucially — experience other obstacles that put them off using it. Maybe they can’t find it, or if they know where it is then they can’t access it. Or when they do access it, the connection turns out to be low-grade.
These are the problems that our technology solves. Our solution, from the CVN through to the smartphone client, via the cloud-based Curator, makes high quality amenity Wi-Fi easy to find, simple to access and secure. (Even more secure now, thanks to Safetynet Curator).
With our Always Best Connected solution we integrate cellular data connectivity so users can be automatically moved between networks to ensure the optimum connection at all times.
But it’s the entire package that users really need; this is the demand. The entire package of quality, convenience, and security — all of them automated.
To go back to my domestic security analogy, end users need to go to the experts to get this package. And those experts, more often than not, are mobile operators. These organizations are ideally placed to provide that entire package; although clearly mobile application providers and fixed and cable operators are also alive to the benefits of delivering this kind of experience.
But just like with that dream home, it’s all about location, location, location. The Devicescape Curated Virtual Network has more than 20 million amenity Wi-Fi locations and we know they’re the premium locations because we monitor more than 300 million constantly, worldwide. So we only include those we know are the best, in the moment.
Our locations are easy to get to, they have the best facilities and now they have enhanced security; prime real estate, indeed.