While the multi-unit housing segment is rapidly growing, residents are becoming more discerning—and property and building owners have to compete more and more to stand out. As some properties look to make structural improvements, others are looking to distinguish themselves with technology. The first opportunity to impress a new resident is when they look at their phone to see if they’re able to connect to high-speed internet. Nearly 75% of new residents prefer their internet already installed in their units.1 There is an expectation for everything to work—starting the moment they put down their moving boxes. Since the explosion of remote and hybrid work models, their livelihoods may very well depend on internet service.
MDUs have to walk a fine line—one where they protect their net operating income while offering the most desirable services. Instead of investing in costly amenities that aren’t used every day, they can invest in a service that residents use continuously: their internet connection.
1”Apartment Residents Weigh in on the Hottest Trends in Housing,” The National Multifamily Housing Council, The 2020 NMHC/Kingsley Associates Apartment Resident Preferences Report, 2020
Wifi is as critical as electricity and water.
Today, wifi should be just as reliable as any utility. When you want it, it should be there. MDUs and ISPs are continuously looking into services that can best help them attract and retain residents. Spending time figuring out which hardware they need (and how to set it up), troubleshooting with customer service, or waiting for an ISP technician to arrive can be highly frustrating for a new resident, especially when each of these pain points can be easily avoided.
When the MDU uses eero’s Service Left in Place (SLIP) process, meaning that the wifi stays in an apartment just like a refrigerator or microwave, a new resident will have wifi up and running within minutes of moving in. Additionally—with eero’s patented TrueMesh technology, eero devices build mesh backhaul links dynamically over available wireless and wired interfaces, creating a high-performance, resilient, reliable, and secure wireless network. As a decentralized network, there is no single point of failure. Each residence has its own personal network—so if the wifi goes down in unit 4C, it’s not affecting the service in unit 4D or any other location in the community. This helps avoid major connection problems and minimizes downtime.
In an MDU, residents should be able to quickly and easily personalize their wifi network, fostering a sense of ownership. This includes custom network names and passwords. When friends and family visit, residents can use the eero app to customize further, giving guests their own secure profiles. The same applies to parents who want to provide age-appropriate access privileges to their children.
Building the smart MDU.
More than any other entity, MDUs need to stay ahead of smart home and IoT trends—because they’re providing these services. With hundreds (or potentially thousands) of residents living in the same MDU, property managers need to be able to provide a connected digital ecosystem that can handle everything demanded from it. Staying ahead means having a dedicated wireless network for building-owned devices that are connected to the internet at all times and allowing property management to control all these devices at scale.
Just like residents, property managers want a turnkey setup—a simple, intuitive system that just works—with proactive visibility to help them get ahead of issues in the MDU before they become disruptive. With eero, property managers have an intuitive access portal that lets them quickly help residents if they’re encountering a problem. Also, they can gain efficiencies by leveraging eero’s property wide IoT network for connected devices like smart locks for self-guided tours and leak sensors to alert the property manager or maintenance staff before a major leak occurs.
The ISP advantage.
MDU environments are unique from other ISP wifi deployments in that they have a higher RF density. In order to fully optimize a building, the ISP and MDU need a self-optimizing, self-healing wifi deployment (like eero) that doesn’t create overhead. The wifi deployment should also benefit the ISP in the long term, future-proofing the ISP against bandwidth demands that will continue to increase year after year.
In addition, ISPs want to eliminate one of their highest expenses: maintenance calls. With SLIP in a building, ISPs can leverage a software-controlled move-in/move-out experience, troubleshoot from anywhere, and avoid truck rolls or equipment shipments.
Lastly, eero’s remote network management software, eero Insight, allows ISPs to proactively resolve issues, shorten customer call times, and keep networks healthy—increasing efficiency and saving money.
Community wifi reimagined.
eero for Communities is the top-tier service that binds the interests of the resident, MDU, and ISP together. For residents, eero networks are ready for immediate activation at move-in. For MDUs, eero delivers the hardware and software they need to create a smart building wifi solution that works across all their units and common areas. In turn, this provides property owners with the means to attract and retain residents. For ISPs, eero provides greater efficiency with SLIP, and reduces truck rolls and call times with proactive troubleshooting for customer support teams.
To learn more about how working across the entire wifi experience delivers the ideal solution, download our latest eero for Communities white paper.
Download eero's report here