Hughes Managed LEO Service Offers Dependable Backup Connectivity for Big Box Retailer
Customer
The Big Box retailer sought a reliable backup service at every location, so that stores could serve as dependable hubs for shoppers to find everything they need, when they need it. Hughes Managed LEO Service delivered a high performance, high availability solution for network continuity at every location.
A Big Box retailer with 20 locations across the Mid-Atlantic region offers every type of consumer good––from groceries to clothing to technology––and provides customers a one-stop shopping experience. Each store spans more than 50,000 square feet in a large-scale building, serving a market of approximately 250,000 people. Stores are situated in a variety of communities, from suburban to exurban to more rural environments. Because of their ability to provide lower prices, a wide variety of products and employment opportunities, these Big Box stores have become anchors within their communities.
Challenge
Each store’s network connectivity, such as cable or fiber, reflects the type of infrastructure available in the local area. All stores have both primary and backup connectivity, with the secondary link often leveraging wireless 4G or geostationary orbit (GEO) satellites. Despite these backup services, many stores experienced issues related to outages, brownouts and poor network performance. Given that each store generates $1M+ in revenue per month, even a brief outage could impact their ability to engage customers, process credit card transactions, operate security cameras and access back-office applications like inventory management platforms.
Recently, several locations also experienced a prolonged outage due to severe storms that swept through the region and disrupted cable/fiber lines and knocked out cell towers. Stores were forced to close temporarily––all during a time when customers were clamoring to stock up on basic supplies.
In short, the backup services failed to meet the stores’ needs. The wireless service often did not provide adequate coverage across a store’s full footprint, causing networking problems and an inability for employees to access back-office applications from anywhere on the floor. The high latency associated with GEO service caused enterprise applications and register transactions to run slowly and impacted the customer experience.
The retailer sought a high performance, high availability solution to provide network continuity at each location, so that stores could be dependable community hubs where shoppers could find everything they need, when they need it.
Hughes Solution
The retailer selected Hughes Managed LEO Service, an enterprise-grade Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite service, for backup connectivity at every store. The Hughes service leverages the OneWeb LEO constellation for low-latency broadband with high data throughput and true global coverage, along with 24x7 support and as-a-service delivery.
As an enterprise-grade service, the Hughes Managed LEO Service delivers dedicated capacity to every store, so locations don’t have to worry about sharing best-effort capacity with consumer applications and users. Because LEO satellites are closer to Earth than GEO satellites, they enable faster response times for continuous connectivity. With Hughes Managed LEO, the retailer can provide backup connectivity to all their stores, including those in more remote locations where broadband and wireless options are less viable or unavailable altogether. What’s more, they can maintain operations following a disaster or weather event and not lose out on revenue or the opportunity to serve customers.
Hughes Technology
As part of a Hughes Managed Services Solution, the LEO service includes:
- The Hughes Electronically Steerable Antenna (ESA)––an innovative, low-cost, flat panel antenna technology that is proving to be a game-changer for LEO implementations. The ESA––with its low profile, sleek design––delivers high throughput and low latency connectivity.
- Customized backup plans to meet the individual needs of each store.
- Guaranteed Service Level Agreements with 24x7 monitoring and dedicated help desk support.
- One-stop simplicity. From site implementation to help desk support and billing, Hughes provides everything necessary for the Managed LEO deployment at every store. That includes terminals, capacity, and network management.
Get more information about Hughes Managed LEO solutions.
