Once upon a time, it started in the Alps. Then it set out to conquer the world.

It is 2002. Guest WLAN is in its infancy and both the administrators and the providers of such networks – often hotels with business travellers as customers – are confronted with new problems almost daily: Excessive data consumption, hefty additional payments, bandwidth bottlenecks and access problems with fixed IP addresses, to name just a few.

The brilliant idea

So on a Friday in May, when a handful of network engineers are celebrating the end of a long working week in a bar in Landeck, these topics dominate the shop talk. Probably the most brilliant mind among them, Asteas mastermind Anton Strobl, absolutely disagrees when at some point it is said that these problems are impossible to solve in one engine. Again and again he sketches out how this could work – until one of the opponents in the discussion throws down the proverbial gauntlet: “You’ll never make THAT work!”

The ingenious tinkerer

Anton Strobl accepted the challenge. After all, he had been socialised with network technology, in two and a half decades between mainframes and server farms of Austria’s largest banking group. If not him, then who? So on Saturday at 8 a.m. he sat in front of the screen and never left until he had finished programming the idea of a plug & play engine that had been born during the night. On Sunday at 4:00 a.m. the time had come – the engine was running. The IACBOX was born. Not very much later, in May 2004, it was to win its first innovation prize.

The visionary market strategist

The local IT pioneers Fabian Ruetz and Martin Wille (Agonet GmbH) turned out to be trend scouts and won a project in an Ischgl hotel with the IACBOX – barely two months after its birth. This manifested how precisely the needs of the market were met. Anton Strobl’s congenial partner and Asteas managing director Andreas Eckhart immediately realised that his hour had come. In addition to his profound knowledge of network technology, he has a natural talent for marketing and sales issues, as well as a communicative nature that led the IACBOX unerringly onto the road to success: barely one year after the first licence, the cooperation with a very important partner, Siemens AG Austria, took shape. With Siemens and thanks to the continuous further development, which implemented special needs of customer groups promptly and brilliantly, the IACBOX also gained a foothold outside the hotel and hospitality industry: The first hospitals came on board with the HiMed interface. Municipalities and other public institutions, financial institutions and educational institutions, industrial and manufacturing companies followed.

The IACBOX conquers the world

From then on, it was one after the other: with an unwavering eye for the essentials and a magic touch when it came to selecting strategic partners, Andreas Eckhart sent the box on a world tour: in 2004, the first one went online in Germany, then it broke through the borders of the German-speaking countries. In 2009, the first licence went to Dubai, and with Club Robinson, TUI Blue and the TUI cruise ships, more and more holiday destination locations popped up on the IACBOX map. The leap to the international markets was made. As in the original market, the hospitality sector jumped on first, followed by hospital operators and the enterprise sector.

Today, the IACBOX is much more than the former prototype. 15 years of development have ensured that it has become an intelligent network gateway with a fully functional WiFi hotspot solution that easily outshines the industry giants, not in every respect but in many. With around 5,000 active systems, it is represented in over 40 countries worldwide and, with the best price-performance ratio on the market, presents itself as an ideal partner for medium-sized companies. Thanks to the always consciously cultivated hardware independence, lean company structures and the flexibility inherent in the system, it is possible to respond to the requirements of customers and partners and to react quickly and effectively to market specifications.

A partner with handshake quality

What sets Asteas apart from the industry giants is not only the price-performance ratio, but also the immediate availability of German-speaking support, fast and flexible adaptability to new legal, system or market requirements and especially the proximity to the customer. The tech team is known all over the country for excellent support and is constantly working on improving and extending the functions, ensuring the quality and, in general, the security and legal compliance of the entire product. Asteas sees it as its responsibility to offer the IACBOX as a future-proof, reliable solution. Thanks to upgradeable licence packages, the solution always grows with the customer. It is the declared goal of the two masterminds at Asteas to enter into a lasting and sustainable relationship with customers and partners. The best proof of the success of this strategy are the IACBOX users from the very beginning, who have remained loyal to the company to this day.

Partners with the IACBOX in their portfolio are important allies along the way, share in the success, find attractive conditions as well as prospects that can be expanded depending on their commitment, and receive the best possible support. A sales and marketing team looks after the distribution partners and works diligently on the further development of the international markets.

What happened in the German-speaking countries?

Here, Andreas Eckhart once again proved his unerring instinct and found the perfect distribution partners. The distribution cooperation with Infinigate concluded in 2015 is certainly another milestone in the success story. The group of employees entrusted with sales was quickly fully convinced of the product and did a great job day after day, so the distribution in Germany received a strong growth boost.

Best prospects for success in the future

Constant further development is a homework at Asteas. The ideas never run out, because the market always provides them. Data traffic in the networks is growing exponentially, online anyway, but also offline. With the Internet of Things, we are facing new challenges in terms of security, and although the expansion of bandwidth is promoted and pushed by politicians and interest groups, it is questionable whether the supply will keep pace with the technology and grow as fast as the demand. Thus, bandwidth management continues to grow in importance.

No matter what happens in the world of networked people, things and processes, you can rely on Asteas. We keep at it and upgrade the IACBOX so that our customers are always on the safe side and our product is state of the art. Our partners also contribute to this time and again by telling us about their experiences and giving us feedback from their everyday work. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our partners from the very beginning. They have been and continue to be our loyal supporters for more functionality, security and legal compliance in the world of WLAN access.