Angie Tellmann, Averitt Express: Aerohive Enterprise WLAN Selected for Freight Transportation Services

October 10, 2011

Averitt Express has installed an Aerohive enterprise WLAN to ensure its commitment to offer superior freight transportation services.

“When that controller failed (as part of a demo with another WLAN provider) and the network failed the Wi-Fi network was down, I knew that a controller-based solution wasn’t for us,” said Angie Tellmann, Networking Services, Averitt Express. “Our goal is to have 100% percent network uptime, which allows downtime only for maintenance.”

“Aruba and Cisco offer a resolution to the redundancy problem by suggesting a backup controller for each location, but why would we spend extra money when we didn’t have to? Aerohive’s controller-less wireless architecture was the way to go - hands down.”

Tellmann concludes...“In today's market, I've seen so many companies lose focus on customer service. Aerohive stands out in the area of customer service and genuinely wants their customers to understand how to use its products. The online help and classes offered by Aerohive are very easy to understand, even if you don’t have a wireless background.”

Celebrating 40 years of service in 2011, Averitt Express is a provider of freight transportation and supply chain management. Averitt operates more than 100 service centers and serves thousands of points throughout the Southern United States, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Averitt also provides international transportation services to 100 different countries and more than 300 international destinations.

Network uptime, availability and security have been key drivers behind Averitt’s technology decisions. After undergoing a network audit that revealed a weakness in its existing wireless security, Averitt ended up with a complete overhaul of its WLAN, upgrading from a wireless deployment with autonomous APs to Aerohive’s WLAN solution that offers a controller-less, centrally-managed wireless architecture.

The company is utilizing Aerohive’s Private Preshared Key (PPSK) feature, which administrators use to assign a unique PSK to every station on the network without the administrative overhead of configuring 802.1X.

Averitt has converted approximately 55 locations to the Aerohive enterprise WLAN solution and has approximately 600 wireless clients, including handheld wireless devices, Towmotor forklifts equipped with wireless devices and other general purpose devices, accessing the network via a few hundred HiveAPs spread throughout its locations.Averitt is leveraging a cloud strategy throughout its enterprise network, and therefore is managing its network using Aerohive's Cloud Services Platform - HiveManager Online.