Five ways to lower network cost of ownership with Inseego

Traditional network infrastructure fiber, cable, and even satellite, forces enterprises to accept high initial investment and complex, recurring maintenance. The Inseego 5G ecosystem, centered on devices like the FX4200 5G Cellular Router, the MiFi X PRO hotspot, and the FW3000 Outdoor CPE, completely disrupts this high-cost model.

By leveraging a unified platform of high-performance hardware and the centralized management of Inseego Connect and the Inseego Mobile App, businesses can dramatically reduce their Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

Here is how Inseego’s solutions reduce network TCO.

1) Zero-touch installation and plug-and-play come together

The most significant financial benefit of Inseego 5G FWA is the elimination of massive costs associated with civil engineering, trenching, complex wiring, and conduit installation, making it the preferred access choice where wireline is costly or impractical.

Inseego’s 5G Cellular Router FWA line: The instant infrastructure replacement or deployment

The FX4200 is designed for a "better than plug-and-play" experience, ensuring that large rollouts for retail or branch offices can be handled quickly by existing personnel, resulting in significant cost savings upfront and overtime.

• Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP): Upon its first boot, all Inseego devices automatically authenticate with Inseego Connect™ and apply pre-defined templates, firmware, and security policies.
• Intuitive on-the-go setup: The FX4200 features a display screen that offers signal information and includes a battery backup. This allows staff to walk around with the device and position the router for the best signal and connect it "on the go," without needing hardwired power or advanced testing tools during the initial setup phase.

• Major initial cost savings: The intuitive setup and ZTP functionality eliminate the need to hire expensive, highly specialized network technicians for installation. Existing on-site personnel can handle large-scale rollouts, accelerate the time-to-market and minimizing the initial costs associated with complex integration and specialized labor.
• High-performance 5G: Not only that, Inseego’s latest 5G cellular router, the FX4200, is built on Qualcomm Dragonwing FWA Gen 3. This means it delivers high-performance 5G (multi-gigabit speeds and low latency) that is instantly ready to support demanding applications like voice, video, and cloud services right out of the box.

2) Take advantage of easy device management with cloud software

Long-term TCO is dominated by ongoing operational costs. The centralized management provided by Inseego Connect and the Inseego Mobile App is specifically engineered to minimize recurring costs by automating maintenance and eliminating expensive site visits with remote management.

Inseego Connect: The zero-truck-roll platform

Inseego Connect is the cloud-based platform that allows IT teams to manage geographically dispersed devices, from FX4200 routers to MiFi X PRO hotspots, from a single, unified management dashboard or mobile app. This centralized visibility and control translates directly into massive savings and efficiency gains.

1. Remote maintenance & management:
   1. This platform provides full-featured remote management at scale, allowing IT teams to configure settings, view diagnostics, run speed tests, view speed test history, push firmware, and manage updates remotely.
   2. By enabling bulk actions (applying configuration templates, editing failover policies) and providing a single cloud platform for every FX4200 and MiFi node, IT teams gain full control "without needing to dispatch a field technician to troubleshoot issues."
   3. The Inseego FWA router provides a secure, alternate management path for other routers and switches through remote out-of-band-management. IT teams can securely tunnel through to remotely access and troubleshoot the console terminal of a downed device.
2. Preventive operational cost control:
   1. Proactive health analytics: Automated alerts and threshold-based notifications prevent costly downtime. IT teams are alerted to potential issues before they cause slowdowns or trigger unexpected bandwidth overages, allowing for immediate remote correction.
   2. Remote diagnostic terminal: This powerful tool allows network administrators to run network diagnostic commands remotely from within Inseego Connect. This means IT teams have the capability to debug complex issues, run ping tests, or traceroute without relying on time-consuming on-site reporting or dispatching a technician.
   3. Centralized visibility: IT teams can view network topology, device inventory, and real-time diagnostics (signal strength, throughput, speed tests, and data usage), enabling swift, remote issue resolution without relying on time-consuming on-site reporting.
3. Logistical & security savings:
   1. GPS asset management: For businesses utilizing portable MiFi X PRO hotspots or other mobile assets, Inseego Connect offers geo-fencing and GPS asset tracking. This capability improves inventory control and reduces the operational expenditure and risk associated with asset loss and complex auditing processes.
   2. Policy enforcement and auditing: Policy controls, such as scheduling updates, enforcing network rules, and reviewing change logs for governance, reduce administrative overhead. Built-in security (IPSec VPN, encrypted tunnels, role-based access) minimizes the cost and risk associated with data breaches and compliance failures.

Real-world savings with Inseego Connect: The Tractor Supply case study

A major U.S. retailer, Tractor Supply, demonstrated massive, long-term operational savings by deploying Inseego's solution across over 2,200 retail locations.

This large-scale rollout leveraged Inseego Connect's ability to deliver seamless remote configuration and management. Inseego Connect allowed Tractor Supply to quickly and efficiently deploy, activate, and manage all network settings and policies across thousands of devices without needing to send personnel to each store. This capability significantly reduced the need for costly on-site field technicians and minimized "truck rolls" across the entire fleet, resulting in substantial, quantifiable savings during their product rollout.

Further management cost reduction with the Inseego Mobile App

The Inseego Mobile App is a vital tool for reducing operational costs by shifting basic technical support away from the central IT helpdesk and onto the end-user's device.

• Minimizing helpdesk labor costs: The app empowers end-users to perform basic, first-line troubleshooting for their devices (like the FX3100 and MiFi X PRO). By guiding users through self-service steps, such as confirming wireless coverage, ensuring the SIM card is inserted correctly, or correctly restarting the device, the app prevents a high volume of Level 1 support tickets.
• Preventing unnecessary truck rolls: Beyond the helpdesk, the app helps avoid costly dispatches of field technicians. It provides users with intuitive diagnostics and signal placement assistance, allowing them to resolve common connectivity issues like poor signal strength due to their device placement.
• Full remote management: The Inseego Mobile App acts as a convenient, portable management console, enabling IT administrators to remotely manage all their Inseego devices from a smartphone or tablet as long as the devices are registered with Inseego Connect. This allows for quick, on-the-go checks of device status, remote reboots, and viewing critical diagnostics.
• Optimizing device installation: For new deployments, the app often includes features that simplify initial setup, such as visual guides for optimal placement and antenna alignment, further reducing the need for specialized installers and associated initial costs.

3) Mitigating costly downtime with automatic failover

Powerful connectivity is essential for TCO because downtime is catastrophic. Inseego mitigates the significant financial impact of interruptions through built-in resilience and automated failover capabilities, ensuring consistent business operations.

• Layered failover options: Many of Inseego’s devices support Dual WAN capabilities, allowing the device to act as a wireless failover for a primary wired connection (like fiber or cable). If the wireline network goes down, the Inseego 5G FWA solution instantly takes over, maintaining connectivity and avoiding the high costs of a complete network outage. Inseego Connect also triggers all related failover alarms and threshold-based notifications, so admins can react immediately.
• Auto-SIM Select: This feature (on devices like the FX4200) automates the SIM select process by allowing the device to run a speed test on boot-up for each installed SIM card. It then autonomously selects the SIM and carrier that provides the best connectivity and throughput, ensuring optimal performance and enabling hands-off switching.
• Ruggedized resilience: Outdoor units like the FW3000 are engineered for physical resilience, featuring an IP67 rating against dust and water ingress and a wide operating temperature range (e.g., 22°F to 158°F). This rugged design prevents device failure due to environmental exposure, reducing emergency replacement and service downtime.

4) Enabling connectivity where it’s challenging

Inseego 5G FWA is often a superior and more cost-effective choice than traditional infrastructure in environments that are underserved or unserved by wired solutions.

• Long-range, high-speed access: The FW3000 Outdoor CPE series is a robust, all-in-one solution that combines multiple high-gain directional antennas with routing capabilities. This device can sustain 5G speeds up to 10 km away from a cell tower, ensuring high-speed access even in remote or underserved locations.
• Cost-effective indoor coverage: Extending 5G coverage indoors is simpler and more cost-effective with the FW3000 Outdoor CPE. The FW3000 maximizes external signal acquisition and brings the connection inside using a single Ethernet cable that delivers both data and power (PoE), eliminating the need for expensive dedicated wiring or specialized installers and thereby significantly reducing the cost and complexity of internal architecture.

5) 5G Advanced architecture: Preventing future costs with AI and slicing

As the 5G standard evolves toward 5G Advanced (3GPP Release 18+), Inseego is ready to integrate new 5G capabilities that drive cost reduction through enhanced resilience, resource sharing, and efficiency.

Network Slicing and Resource Optimization

Network slicing, enabled by technologies like Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN), fundamentally reduces initial costs and operational costs by allowing multiple logical networks to share a single physical infrastructure.

• Reduced costs through traffic isolation: Inseego already supports basic network slicing features on its 5G FWA devices. Slicing improves operational efficiency by leveraging inherent isolation and advanced automation functions. This reduces the need for manual intervention by network engineers. This flexibility enables providers to offer tailored services (e.g., Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC) or enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB)) optimized for specific customer needs.

The future of efficiency: 5G Advanced and AI integration

The move toward 5G Advanced (5G-A) focuses heavily on driving down operational costs through integrated intelligence, energy efficiency, and enhanced automation. By supporting the foundational architecture for 5G-A, Inseego hardware protects your TCO against future obsolescence.

• AI for dynamic cost reduction: A core feature of 5G-A is the deep integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). This intelligence is used to automate complex, real-time tasks like energy efficiency control, dynamic traffic steering, and predictive maintenance. These automated processes minimize the necessity for costly, manual intervention by network engineers, assuring a continuous reduction in operational costs.
• Massive energy savings and sustainability: The 5G Advanced framework focuses heavily on network energy savings and sustainability. Since power is a significant portion of long-term operational costs, AI/ML models can dynamically switch components to sleep states or optimize power consumption based on real-time traffic load. This translates directly into substantial, measurable cost reduction through lower utility bills.
• Proactive network self-healing: AI enables the network to become proactive and self-healing. By analyzing massive streams of diagnostic data, AI can predict potential hardware failures or service degradation before it impacts users. This shift from reactive troubleshooting to predictive maintenance eliminates expensive, emergency field technician dispatches and prevents unexpected downtime costs.

Inseego aims to reduce the TCO of your network

By combining powerful 5G hardware (FX4200, FX3100, FW3000, MiFi X PRO) with intelligent, centralized software (Inseego Connect and Mobile App), and building in support for future 5G advancements and resource optimization features, Inseego provides an ecosystem that fundamentally lowers TCO.