UniFi network design and deployment, Honolulu
Networks you own, on a platform with no per‑device license.
I survey the building, design the network, configure it on the bench, cut it over midweek, and hand you documentation your own team can work from. The hardware is yours. The console is yours. So is the paperwork.
The pricing model, plainly
What renting a network actually costs
Several enterprise platforms charge an annual subscription per switch and per access point for the right to manage hardware you already bought. Let the renewal lapse and the console degrades or locks. The equipment keeps drawing power in your closet and you lose the ability to change a password on it.
UniFi charges no recurring per-device license for switching, wireless, routing, cameras or door access. Buy the gear once and manage it for as long as it runs. That is a property of the platform, and it is most of the reason I standardized on it.
| Over five years | Subscription platform | This platform |
|---|---|---|
| Hardware | Purchased | Purchased |
| Right to manage it | Annual fee, per device | Included, no expiry |
| If an invoice is late | Console degrades or locks | Nothing changes |
| Camera recording | Often per camera, per month | Local storage you own |
| Who holds the console | Often the vendor or their reseller | You. I hold a delegated account |
Comparison is of licensing models, not of vendors. Some subscription platforms are excellent, and for a client with a large internal IT team the tradeoff can go the other way. I will tell you when that is the case.
Measured, one Oahu campus
Numbers from a real survey, reported without naming the site
Why this matters more than a speed test
A congested 2.4 GHz band cannot be fixed with a better access point, because the interference is coming from outside the building. It gets fixed by moving clients to 5 and 6 GHz, narrowing channel width, and placing radios where measurement says they belong.
A console showing seven networks looks segmented. If every device still sits on one physical subnet, a thermostat can still reach the finance workstation. The console was telling the truth about its configuration and nothing about the wiring.
Scope
How the work is bounded
Every engagement is quoted as a fixed scope at a fixed price, phased so you can see what you are buying before the next phase starts. There is no monthly tier to grow into and no agreement that renews itself while nobody is watching.
Assess and advise
A survey of what you have, what is failing, and why. You get the findings in writing whether or not you hire me. This often concludes that you do not need the thing you were about to buy.
Design only
Full design package, addressing plan, channel and power plan, and a bill of materials. Your team or your existing contractor builds it. I stay reachable through the build.
Design and deploy
I design it, stage it, configure it, cut it over and document it. One engineer from the first walkthrough to final validation, so nothing is dropped in a handoff between people.
Support, optional
Monitoring, firmware lifecycle and configuration changes on what I built, scoped by sites, hours and severity. You keep the hardware and the documentation whether or not you take it.
Sectors
Sanctuaries, gyms, classrooms, baseyards
Most network design assumes a floor of desks with predictable density and a ceiling you can drill. A campus with a hard-ceilinged auditorium, a reflective gym, concrete between classrooms and cameras out at the property line behaves nothing like that, and the difference shows up during the first week of use.
- Houses of worship five distinct coverage problems under one roof and a deadline every Sunday
- Schools and education device density that arrives all at once, filtering obligations, and a refresh window the length of a summer
- Nonprofits capital funding available, recurring software budget unavailable, which is the exact shape this platform fits
- Public agencies documented segmentation and an audit trail, procured on a calendar that belongs to someone else
Delivery
One engineer, start to finish
The person who walks your building is the person who writes the design, racks the switches, runs the cutover and trains your staff. No account manager, no tier-one queue, and nobody arriving with a printed plan they did not write.
Seventeen years in submarine networks. ISSM and cyber inspector for a squadron of fast-attack submarines. Same discipline, smaller buildings.
Walk the building
Every room, including the ones nobody mentions until the second visit, and the outdoor runs between them.
Survey, then specify
Radio placement comes from measurement. A floor plan and a rule of thumb produce the diagram on the left, above.
Design and quote
Written design, diagrams, addressing, channel plan and a bill of materials with the supplier and date on every line.
Stage on the bench
Switches and radios are configured and burned in before anything is carried into your building.
Cut over midweek
New infrastructure runs in parallel where the building allows it, with a written rollback. Licensed contractors perform any cabling, conduit or mounting.
Hand over
As-builts, a credential register in a vault you control, and training until your team can do the ordinary things without calling me.
Latest field note
Sunday at 78 percent
Nine timed reads of one campus's upload line across two services, against a measured 45 Mbps ceiling. The peak came at the service close, not at peak attendance, and it left less headroom than one additional full-HD stream.
Send me what you are running today
A photo of the closet and a description of what is failing is enough to start. The first conversation and the on-site assessment are free, and the findings are yours in writing either way.