Energotel Builds an Efficient Wireless Office Network for Multiple Campuses with Huawei Wi-Fi 6

Jointly owned by five shareholders — Západoslovenská energetika, Stredoslovenská energetika (SSE), Východoslovenská energetika Holding, Slovenské elektrárne, and TRANSPETROL — Energotel is a Slovak energy and communications company that provides advanced communications services to energy enterprises and commercial customers, alike.

SSE — Energotel’s parent company — delivers and transports electricity and natural gas for the central Slovak region, providing households, enterprises, and wholesalers with premium energy, through a pioneering service that lives almost entirely online. This is how SSE’s customers inquire about energy saving and efficiency improvements, propose customized energy demands, give feedback, and receive help, greatly enhancing convenience for all concerned but placing additional demands on the network.

Production Services Increase Mobile Office Network Requirements

SSE has multiple office buildings, including its headquarters, a sales department, and a substation office. In addition, SSE has a strong online presence, with various online energy sales businesses, decision-making meetings, emergency-handling meetings, and training programs all handled virtually.

As its range of services grew and communication methods diversified, SSE employees were increasingly reliant on untethered devices — from cellphones and tablets, to laptop computers — greatly increasing the demand on the wireless network: demand that SSE’s legacy Wi-Fi network, in service for more than six years, was increasingly unable to meet. Indeed, its 1 Gbit/s uplink bandwidth was insufficient, and network freezes during peak hours were increasingly frequent. The decision to upgrade SSE’s network, in an effort to improve the office experience for employees and boost work efficiency, became urgent, with improved coverage, speed and connectivity all prioritized.

Huawei’s Wi-Fi Solution Empowers the Mobile Office

SSE deployed Huawei’s 802.11ac/802.11ax APs and wireless access controller AirEngine 9700-M to build a vastly improved wireless office network. In addition, Wi-Fi 6 AP7060DN has been used in high-density scenarios such as conference rooms, enabling a four-fold increase in user access. This AP is also ideal for large-bandwidth applications such as wireless projection and remote HD video.

AP7060DN is also deployed in areas without fixed work positions or where signal coverage is traditionally weak, such as corridors. Its Dynamic Frequency Assignment (DFA) algorithm automatically detects adjacent-channel and co-channel signal interference, delivering high-quality and always-on signal coverage. The APs can automatically negotiate with each other to identify and disable redundant radios, reducing 2.4 GHz co-channel interference, increasing system capacity, and reducing the packet loss rate during roaming from 4% to 0%.

In areas with fixed work positions, the Wi-Fi 5 AP6050DN concurrently processes the data of multiple users, supporting high-bandwidth services such as HD video, multimedia, and desktop cloud applications, and bringing a high-quality wireless network experience to every employee.

Huawei’s full series of 802.11ac/802.11ax APs support multiple authentication and encryption modes — including WEP, WPA/WPA2-PSK, WPA/WPA2-PPSK, WPA/WPA2-802.1X, WAPI and WPA3 — safeguarding wireless networks. With multiple authentication and encryption modes, the APs verify user identities to ensure that only authorized users have access to network resources. They also encrypt data on radio links to ensure that the wireless network data is received and parsed only by the expected users.

In addition, these APs provide the WIDS/WIPS attack detection mechanism to monitor, identify, defend against, and counter rogue devices, as well as implement refined management, safeguarding the air interface environment and wireless transmission.

Innovative Services Incubated by “Internet+”

An increasing number of energy companies are researching and deploying the "Internet+" business model as they pursue digital transformation. This is certainly true at SSE, whose innovative e-Service facilitates online interaction with users through multiple channels, such as webpages and apps. Meanwhile, it allows SSE to manage electricity consumption measurement data online, unlocking the value inherent in its data and placing it on a firm footing to embrace the intelligent world.