How To: Get Wired

More and more, your customers require constant access to the Internet, as do many of your on-premise games, ATM machines, security cameras, POS systems, and jukeboxes. Here’s a look at the best ways to get your bar wired for success.

on-premise-wifi-pos.jpgLook down your bar on any given night and you’ll see dozens of people tapping away at their smartphones, another group playing Photo Hunt on your bartop Megatouch machine, a couple picking songs from your digital jukebox, and a line of thirsty customers waiting to get cash from your ATM. What you won’t see are the millions of pieces of invisible information being beamed to and from all of those devices, without which all of your hardware would be rendered useless, leaving your customers restless and heading for the exit.

The Internet is a vital component to a successful bar business these days, just as valuable to your customers as it is to you. While a modern owner can pay his bills, order inventory, and promote his venue with a Web site via an on-premise Internet connection, the benefits carry over to providing better services and experiences for patrons as well. The worst thing an owner can see is a young customer opening her smartphone, trying to check her e-mail, and telling her friends that she can’t get a Wi-Fi signal, so she’s going down the block to Starbucks. That’s lost business.

Bar Business spoke to Mike Luzio, CEO of Industry Retail Group, Inc. (IRG), of Wilmington, Delaware, about his company’s expertise in providing full-service consulting, advising, and installation of commercial broadband Internet solutions. Having recently completed a contract with Smokey Bones Bar & Fire Grill, a bar/restaurant chain with dozens of locations throughout the eastern half of the U.S., IRG has extensive experience implementing optimal Internet configurations for service industry venues.

“Bars and nightclubs need to leverage their broadband for all types of things—dynamic signage, IP-based video surveillance, Voice Over IP, Wi-Fi, digital jukeboxes, gaming,” says Luzio. “It has become such an integral piece of their business, they need to ensure that they always have connectivity.”

We presented Luzio with three scenarios that capture typical bar industry needs when it comes to Internet connections, and asked him what IRG would advise the bar owner to do in each situation.

SCENARIO #1: An owner has purchased an empty, gutted retail location that he is going to turn into a bar. It’s approximately 2,500 square feet on one floor. He plans on having your basic set-up: digital jukebox, POS system, ATM machine, and digital televisions throughout. How should he get wired?

LUZIO: In this case, the owner or franchisee or the corporate bar/restaurant is going to need broadband access—DSL, T1 Lines, cable. Why? For a multitude of reasons.

on-premise-wifi-music.jpgOne, they’re going to need it for credit card transactions. When you go to a bar and you swipe your card, it’s not running over a dial-up and taking ten minutes to get information back. Secure corporate credit card transactions have to happen over high-speed Internet.

Two, how do you leverage the broadband Internet access? Your Internet at home gives you cable, phone service and the Internet—all over that one circuit. They’re leveraging their broadband. It’s the same thing for these bar owners. They can use that broadband not only for their point of sale, which they need, but potentially for a Voice Over IP solution, if they are looking to offer and host customer Wi-Fi (and Smokey Bones is a key example of this).

You need to make your bar or restaurant or location that Wi-Fi hotspot. In order to do that, you need broadband. A lot of people don’t realize that the way you enable Wi-Fi access is by utilizing that DSL line that is already in the wall. We’re working right now with a huge jukebox company that pumps all of their stuff in through the Internet. Everything is downloaded. If you want Springsteen’s “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out,” you click it on the Jukebox, it’s downloaded, and it goes through the Internet connection in the wall, hence leveraging the broadband connection in the wall.

What we tell our customers is that the managed broadband—and by managed I mean that we’re handling the broadband if it’s down, making sure it gets back up—is an integral part to their success. We teach our clients and prospects that the $100 DSL can be leveraged for multiple applications for your bar, and you’re able to do a lot over that small connection that will potentially bring more traffic and business into your venue. If you’re looking at bringing in digital jukeboxes, for example, everything is IP (Internet Protocol) based, but you can use that same $100 line to run it over there, and you don’t need separate connections.

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Click here to read more about how to cash in with on-premise ATMs

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SCENARIO #2: A sports bar wants to invest in half-a-dozen computers on-premise for patrons to check sports scores, play in online poker tournaments, etc. The owner has an Internet connection in the form of a LAN line in the basement for his personal computer. How should he get wired?

LUZIO: If the customer has an LAN (Local Area Network) connection, what we would do is come in and use his broadband connection to build a secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) utilizing that broadband connection. You already have the broadband connection in place, but clearly you can’t be running POS transactions, etc., on that line. You need that line to be secure and PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliant, which is what Visa and American Express tell anyone who’s running credit car transactions. You can’t just take that line and start swiping credit cards over POS, because then anybody can access that line, like hackers, and see the credit card and the log of transactions. You need to make that network secure.

If the customer is looking to build his bar out with digital jukeboxes and IP-based scanning machines, etc., they need to put in a large router that adds multiple ports. On the back of the router—for example, on the one many people have at home—there are a couple of different places where you plug things in. You need to put in a secure VPN router that has multiple ports so that we can segregate them, so they can’t “talk to each other.” You’ll plug in the computer and digital jukeboxes, and they can’t talk to each other, but they are all leveraging that same DSL or cable connection from the wall.

on-premise-texting.jpgSCENARIO #3: The owner of a large nightclub (20,000 sq ft) that is housed on three floors of a building wants to upgrade his current broadband configuration to a top of the line system that will allow customers to use their smartphones and access the Web at all times. He also has Web cams that beam live feeds to outside users who can view the activity in the club. How should he get wired?

LUZIO: In this case, when you have large spaces with multiple floors, what we do is upgrade the connection that they have—a DSL or cable connection may not be suitable, they may need more broadband width. Imagine you’re at home trying to get onto a Web site and 50 other people are trying to do the same thing off the same connection—it would take forever. So we’ll upgrade the connection.

If the customer is looking to enable wireless and have Wi-Fi access, where people on the first and third floor can use their iPhones and get complete, ubiquitous coverage in his facility, we will install, service, and monitor wireless AUPs (Acceptable Use Policy), which are wireless devices we install throughout a facility that size, potentially on multiple levels, that allow the opportunity to give coverage throughout the location. So if you want complete coverage on the first floor where people can use their iPhone, but once they go up to the second floor maybe they don’t have it, we’ll design a plan for this nightclub to have complete, redundant wireless access throughout the nightclub.

The Webcam systems are called IP-based security cameras, which are becoming really big. IP-based security cameras are the video cameras you see on the walls. The IRG SecurView is an IP-based security camera that also leverages that broadband connection or DSL line in the wall, and runs all of those cameras off IP-based software.

So, if I’m the owner of this club, and I wanted access to these cameras, everything can be done online. If I’m in Los Angeles, and I have a log-in to the camera system, I can go on and look at a location in New York City. I can look at all the cameras and camera angles. It’s constantly recording that information. Owners really need to understand that low-cost investment to enable the broadband connection can show a return on investment once you start to understand how you can leverage that managed, secure, broadband connection.

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Click here to read the full article “How To: Get Your Bar Set to Surf the ‘Net” in the
Digital Edition of the February 2010 issue of Bar Business Magazine