Category: Vox 4 Thought

Mesh Wi-Fi allows you to create a healthy, reliable home Wi-Fi network quickly and easily. Say hello to your new Wi-Fi MVP.

There’s nothing quite as frustrating as a home Wi-Fi network filled with dead zones and slow speeds. When you discover, even after lifting your devices to the heavens Lion King-style, that a single router just isn’t going to cut it, the next step on the DIY Wi-Fi route usually involves adding a repeater to the mix and hoping for the best.

As convenient as repeaters are – they’re relatively affordable and offer the opportunity to increase the range of your network by simply plugging a device in – as anyone who’s used a repeater will tell you, there are a couple of downsides too.

Desperate times, desperate measures

As detailed in our video below, repeaters are a great way to increase the range of your network in an instant. But, because repeaters work by receiving your Wi-Fi signal and rebroadcasting it, while they may extend the range of your network throughout your home and eliminate dead zones, the speed of your network suffers as a result – sometimes by about as much as half…

Related: When Wi-Fi becomes WHOA-FI: Surviving Poor Connection

Single band repeaters (ones that operate on the 2.4 GHz frequency only instead of 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) are the worst offenders here, as they must receive and retransmit data using the same radio on the same channel, cutting down your bandwidth in the process.

A new Wi-Fi home frontier

This is where mesh Wi-Fi comes in. Mesh Wi-Fi not only extends the range of your network, it doesn’t sacrifice as much speed as a repeater would to do it either. Oh, and it creates a single network while doing so, which means you can enjoy a seamless Wi-Fi experience throughout your home.

You’ll need at least two mesh APs (access points) to get started – it just so happens we sell two-packs – this is because the mesh devices act as ‘nodes’ throughout your home to create a seamless Wi-Fi system.

One unit will act as the primary access point, connecting directly to your router, while the others can be placed around the home where coverage is needed.

Related: Take your home Wi-Fi network to the next level

As the solution is scalable, you can start small and add more units as you go. These nodes also communicate with one another to determine the fastest band for your devices and re-route the traffic accordingly. If one of the nodes goes down, you don’t lose your network along with it – it simply re-routes the traffic to the next available node.

To avoid any loss in performance due to meshing wirelessly, mesh access points can even be connected via network cabling. Although it may seem counterintuitive to add cabling to your “wireless” network, this will improve performance and your Wi-Fi experience.

Yes, the buy-in for mesh is slightly more than for your average repeater, but we have a rental solution to suit your budget there too. So, what are you waiting for?

South Africa’s growing elderly population (people aged 60 and over) is putting the spotlight on finding better ways to care for a demographic that numbers more than 9% of the country’s citizens. With 55% of respondents in a recent survey stating that they cannot afford to save towards retirement and living in a care facility, attention must turn to leveraging cost-effective and user-friendly technological innovations to unlock the potential for telecare.

Telecare can be defined as the continuous, automatic, and remote monitoring of real-time emergencies and lifestyle changes over time to manage the risks associated with independent living. In layman’s terms it enables vulnerable, elderly, and even disabled people to live longer on their own at home through remote monitoring and emergency alarms.

Of course, the amount of care required differs significantly from person to person. Typically, this would require a caregiver to be available when it comes to the potential for accidents and other events that can happen while the elderly person is on their own. This can include everything from an accidental fall, unexpected illness resulting in being unable to get out of bed, forgetting to perform routine tasks (such as closing and locking doors), and leaving the property without any form of communication.

Significantly, research has found that after road traffic injuries, falls are the second leading cause of accidental injury and deaths worldwide. It’s especially the elderly who are at risk, suffering the greatest number of fatal falls with more than 80% of these occurring in low- and middle-income countries.

Unfortunately, the high cost of full-time care makes it unaffordable for most South Africans to have a live-in caregiver. Also, the limited amount of frail care facilities in the country cannot meet the high demand. This means relatives and close friends are relied on to check in on the elderly living alone at home. But if there is an emergency, these visits come too late to provide the immediate assistance required. It is especially the case for those living in rural areas where there is no immediate access to healthcare services. Up to now, those individuals could not simply press a button and have immediate help available to them.

Technology making a difference

In partnership with a global provider of a leading telecare and monitoring system, Vox is bringing even more innovation to its customer base that not only changes lives but saves them as well.

In recent years, Vox has evolved from being a connectivity provider to a company that brings solutions to market that can positively impact on South Africans from all walks of life.

To this end, Vox ICE (In Case of Emergency) is a first of its kind in the country. It sees the international best practice combined with the local expertise and insights of Vox to deliver an affordable and user-friendly solution that addresses the problem of monitoring the elderly who live independently at home in a non-intrusive manner.

Designed and developed by several professionals from the medical, paramedical, and social sectors, Vox ICE consists of motion sensors installed at strategic places inside the house and a wearable alert pendant. This non-invasive solution runs movement data captured by the sensors through a deep learning engine that builds trends and events around the elderly person living on their own. Once an event outside the norm takes place, for example a fall or not locking the back door after a certain amount of time, an alert is sent to a predefined list of emergency contacts. This can either be the next of kin, a neighbour, a caregiver, a control centre (in the case of a frail care facility), or even emergency response.

Essentially, Vox ICE learns the habits and behaviours of the person it monitors and flags any potential issues in real-time before they become catastrophic. As this is a life-saving solution, it has built-in battery power and relies on the Sigfox global network dedicated to the Internet of Things based on low power, long range, and small data packets. This means no existing internet connectivity is required on site as it is a completely self-contained offering with everything built in to deliver a complete plug-and-play experience.

The pendant doubles as a panic button but can also send an alert if the person moves outside a specified area. It features an accelerometer that detects rapid movements based on complex algorithms to detect when a person falls outside the home.

Vox ICE is a completely modular subscription service that can be customised to the unique requirements of each individual customer. The data collected complies with local and international regulatory requirements giving people the peace of mind that their information remains safe.

It is the perfect non-invasive solution that provides telecare to South Africans irrespective of their physical location. With Vox, it is about saving lives and delivering innovation that solves a significant human challenge through technology.

Download our detailed and informative Vox ICE White Paper

Customer-centricity at the core of BC Xpress accounting solution

Building on the purely template-driven, rapid deployment approach that has become commonplace in the market, Braintree (the consulting and integration division of Vox) has introduced BC Xpress, a pre-configured, cloud-based accounting system that is designed with customer-centricity at its core.

Targeting small and medium businesses requiring a cost-effective and customised Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central environment, Braintree BC Xpress is available through a monthly subscription that includes additional support and business intelligence functionality.

“While BC Xpress incorporates rapid deployment, our focus on customer-centricity is something that is lacking in other template-based solutions available today. Braintree is a proudly South African company with more than 25 years’ experience as a Microsoft Gold partner ensuring the organisation has a unique understanding of what local small and medium businesses are looking for from their ERP solutions,” says Neville Levinthal, Head of Business Development at Braintree.

New deployments often start with the basics with companies not realising the full potential of the system they now have in place.

They tend to focus on just keeping the system running to do the fundamentals of what is required.

“However, once the initial ‘new car’ feel of the solution wears off, we come in to assist and tailor the offering even further. Braintree believes it is about building a ubiquitous customer experience for an integrated value proposition. With BC Xpress, ERP is now reinvented for the digital age,” says Levinthal.

The challenging economic environment means cash flow is tight for many SMBs who cannot invest upfront for new deployments. BC Xpress is available on an affordable monthly subscription basis with only R10 000 needed for provisioning fees. This makes the power and innovation of an enterprise-level solution like D365 Business Central accessible to more organisations across industry sectors.

While the issue of cost is addressed through this subscription model, many smaller companies are also concerned about incident support. Typically, there would be a Service Level Agreement (SLA) in place where a company will invest in a certain number of support hours per month, regardless of whether they use it or not.

“Braintree has taken a fundamentally different approach. To this end, 12 support incidents are included in the monthly subscription price which companies can use as they see fit over the 24-month contract period. So, whether it takes five minutes, five hours, or five days to resolve an issue, we work on an incident until it is fixed. There is also the option of purchasing additional support should that be required,” adds Levinthal.

Another differentiator of BC Xpress is that Braintree has also included business intelligence in the offering. This means that the SMB customer will also receive a Microsoft Power BI licence and a free two-day training course with Braintree for one candidate as part of the solution.

“Braintree looks holistically at the customer experience. Cloud-based accounting systems are an essential part of the modern business. But if a customer needs to restore data then it invariably entails a complex process with the service provider. BC Xpress includes 250GB of independent backup meaning the customer is in full control of the restoration process. It comes down to giving our customers everything they are looking for from both technology, business continuity, cost, and accessibility.”

Vox says the second wave of COVID-19 infections and the imminent enforcement of the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) on 1 July has put business and residential estate visitor management under the spotlight from both a health and a data privacy perspective.

“Many companies and residential estates still require people to manually fill in a visitor book. But not only is the handling of pens and paper unhygienic, but there is also no way to guarantee the safety of the information contained in these registers that can include everything from ID numbers to home addresses,” says Rudi Potgieter, Executive Head – Guardian Eye at Vox.

Just consider the amount of structured data in those logbooks and the potential for abuse. Of course, that is assuming visitors are filling in the correct information in the first place. The former puts the onus on the organisation or the residential estate to be responsible for the data and appoint someone in charge of maintaining its integrity. This adds to the cost and complexity of an already cumbersome process. And when it comes to the latter, not having the correct data is bad for both the business and the residential estate especially in the age of COVID-19. Not being able to accurately track and trace people if an infection occurs can result in significant financial fines not to mention the potential loss of life.

Logbooks also make it difficult for businesses to have a real-time view of how many people are inside their premises – a critical requirement during lockdown conditions. Furthermore, the surge in remote working has resulted in suppliers and other business contacts visiting employees at home. Residential estates must therefore find more sophisticated ways of managing the influx of people.

“Unannounced visitors at an estate can significantly slow down the entry process as the guards would need to get confirmation from the resident whether they are expecting guests. Depending on the system used, this could involve a lengthy process of sending a temporary SMS shortcode to the visitor to gain entry or some other steps. If this happens in ‘peak’ traffic at the gate, the frustration of other visitors could impact negatively on the reputation of the estate,” adds Potgieter.

The modular, cloud-based Vox Visitor Management System (VMS) addresses these requirements by providing a more secure, digital alternative to traditional logbooks and SMS-driven systems. Designed as a subscription-based service, there is a hardware rental fee for the handheld devices and a license fee that depends on whether the customer selects the ‘Standard’ or ‘Advanced’ options. Using a mobile app, people living in residential estates can in real-time send a temporary access code to unannounced visitors to avoid any delays with entry.

“COVID and POPI necessitate a digitalised visitor management approach. In addition to the health benefits, this is a more secure way to mitigate against the risk of people going through logbooks or security guards being bribed to sell ID numbers. It is a user-friendly scan process when a visitor arrives (typically using a driver’s licence) with the VMS managing everything automatically. It stores data safely in the cloud eliminating the need for having dedicated on-premise servers,” adds Potgieter.

For residential estates, going the cloud route means significantly reducing the costs of on-premise systems.

No longer does it require to have dedicated servers set up at the guardhouse and have an IT person on call to deal with any technical issues. All this is managed in the cloud through the handheld device used by the guards and the application residents install on their smartphones. Furthermore, the system will automatically verify if a car’s licence disc is expired ensuring the business or residential estate denies entry. This ensures that should an accident happen inside the estate, the estate can avoid the liability for costs that can easily amount to millions of rands.

VMS ensures POPI compliance when it comes to visitor management data and becomes a key step in digitising the business and residential estate giving all stakeholders the peace of mind that this critical element is taken care of.

Companies have until 30 June 2021 to comply with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) or risk significant financial fines or even jail time for their executives. Much focus will therefore be on data compliance during the first half of 2021, a task made more challenging given the increase in remote working. But this is where private Access Point Name (APN) solutions become an effective tool to mitigate the potential risk of data exposure resulting from a distributed work environment.

Already, there are more telecommunication operators entering the fray with an array of private APN solutions. Combine the looming ‘threat’ of POPI with a challenging economic environment, you have a situation where organisations are looking to reduce costs. Despite the affordability of LTE data or consumer data contracts, companies cannot afford to compromise on data protection and should give serious consideration to the advantages private APNs have to offer. This requires decision-makers to focus on technology that is secure by design to safeguard company resources regardless of where people are accessing mission-critical data or whether they are reliant on mobile connections to do so.

The financial services industry has led the charge for private APNs to deliver secure, mobile access to a decentralised workforce. But the benefits extend to even SMEs who need better management of their mobile data. These private APNs give the peace of mind that the network will remain as secure as possible.

Beyond MPLS

A private APN delivers a comprehensive range of services that extend beyond the Rands and Cents argument typically associated with mobile data. Instead, the focus turns to the importance of data compliance, its integrity, and the security of accessing the corporate network using a mobile device whether that of the business or an employee’s personal one.

By specifying the data path between the SIM card and the destination network, and ensuring the resources accessible by the SIM’s user are strictly defined, a whole remote workforce can be tunnelled to a single server or single IP address over the mobile network (if that is what a company wished to accomplish) illustrating the control a private APN can offer.

Without traversing the unsecured public Internet, a private APN enables staff to access the intranet from anywhere via a mobile connection. Additionally, employees can break out from the intranet via the company’s firewall to ensure the team is always connected. Essentially, the private APN contributes to a more secure connection, the monitoring of connections, and control of those who have access to the connection.

Mobile workforce

With the unexpected surge in remote working that started in March 2020, Vox saw customer data consumption increasing by up to 10 times. This contributed to an environment where people needed to access company resources while still ensuring compliance with governance protocols and the privacy of data is maintained.

And despite the increasing availability of fibre, there are still areas in the country where it is not economically feasible to roll out this connectivity yet. This is where reliance on mobile is all-important. But accessing sensitive information ‘over the air’ is something that should fill most organisations with dread given the rise in cyberattacks targeting remote workers. Private APNs address this regardless of the mobile network used.

Customised control

Beyond the security aspect of private APNs, companies can use Vox’s Insight Portal to create usage policies and set data limits at an individual employee level. Add on a managed firewall with clear cut rules to limit unwarranted traffic types or websites which aren’t quite for work, you empower organisations to have access to managed policies that deliver better control of how employees use company mobile data and ensure it is only used for work-specific functions as opposed to streaming YouTube videos or chatting on social media for instance.

In theory, the private APN acts as an extension of the LAN, giving corporations the peace of mind that they can manage data as if the user were sitting at the office. And because the private APN is dependent on a SIM card that can only connect to the corporate network, there is no way to abuse the system. This makes it an ideal solution to help prepare organisations for POPI.

Virtual data centres are the affordable, scalable and flexible data solution every company needs.

Cloud computing has become such a key term in the tech industry, particularly in the last year, that, at this point, it might almost be a little bit embarrassing to admit if you still don’t know what it means. If we’re all being honest, the cloud still sounds as magical and suspiciously ephemeral now as it did when it first became a tech buzzword a little over a decade ago.

Unpacking the mystery

What ‘the cloud’ really refers to are massive, remote data centres accessed by users via the Internet – usually housed on less-than-prime pieces of real estate. That’s a bit more reassuring, right?

At Vox, we host in multiple secure data centres across South Africa. Thanks to our country’s Protection of Personal Information (PoPI) act, companies need to ensure their data is only stored in countries with privacy acts as strong as ours, so, generally, it’s safest to store your data within our borders – this is a must anyway if you’re part of the financial services or government sectors.

Related: Key considerations for an effective cloud strategy 

The cloud is still an absolute fairy-tale for those of us who remember having to buy masses of external hard drives to store our photos, videos and precious documents.

Hard drives prone to malfunction, mislabelling and software incompatibility…

Cloud computing is an even bigger deal for small to medium size enterprises (SMEs) who might not have the budget to build a data centre of their own but find they can’t run a successful business without one. This is where the virtual data centre (VDC) comes in.

Changing the game

When setting up your own data centre, as a rule, it’s always been best to overestimate the number of servers needed rather than be faced with too few – which are costly to buy and take a long time to order and install. Choose too many though, and you’re at risk of blowing your IT budget on infrastructure you don’t need.

This choice of a rock or a hard place is made less so with a VDC that not only allows companies to start off with as many servers as they’d like, but scale back or add on where needed and only pay for the storage used.

Instant access

Not only does the Vox VDC offer businesses access to a complete data centre without having to worry about things like power, connectivity and floor space, it also provides users with the ability to manage virtual machines, networking and edge gateways exactly as they would on-site from a custom-built, user-friendly platform.

Companies are then able to access their data via secure online portals from wherever they happen to be, using any device at hand. The only thing needed is an Internet connection – and we’ve got you covered there too.

But, that’s enough talk. It’s time to click through to our handy tutorial and discover what spinning up a Vox VDC looks like for yourself.

Keep your visitors’ personal information tamper-proof and stored safely and securely in the cloud to avoid the threat of serious fines or jail time.

As South Africans, we have the constitutional right to privacy – some would argue now more than ever in the digital age of data and information sharing. The Protection of Personal Information Act (PoPI), first introduced in 2013 and instituted in full on 1 July 2020, has been established to ensure our personal information is captured, stored and shared responsibly.

What’s the big deal?

Your personal information includes everything from your name, ID number and phone number to your email address. The act applies to any person or organisation responsible for collecting and processing this type of information.

There are eight general conditions for the lawful processing of personal data that form the heart of the PoPI, and these include accountability, information quality (it should be accurate and complete), security safeguards and data subject participation.

By 30 June 2021, all responsible parties will need to comply fully with the PoPI or face the threat of serious fines (up to R10 000 000) or jail time. With the PoPI in full effect, there will hopefully be a drastic reduction in multiple daily unsolicited sales calls, spam SMSs and even identity theft.

Compliance with the PoPI is especially important for companies, body corporates and boomed enclosures overseen by homeowners’ associations who might still rely on manual logbooks for visitor record keeping and can’t guarantee the safety or security of the personal information they contain.

How can we help?

As an integrated, cloud-based security solution, the Vox Visitor Management Solution (VMS), for Corporate or Residential, ensures the safe digital capture and storage of every visitor’s personal information. Vox VMS is also process driven, which means the information collected and stored can’t be tampered with by outside parties.

In addition to all of that, Vox VMS includes value adds like handheld devices with built-in RFID and barcode scanners, passport and ID OCR scanners, keypads and more. The solution is scalable, it can be assembled based on your needs and infrastructure. As it’s cloud-based, the online portal allows you to manage your access points as well as report on access, users and events with ease, from anywhere at any time.

Not only will you feel comfortable knowing exactly who is visiting and why, your visitors can also rest assured their personal information remains private – this is how everyone wins.