EP# 141 - Crafting Connectivity for the Digital Age with an Expert's Touch

Ever wonder what magic happens behind the scenes of your seamless internet experience at hotels and airports? Joseph Voldeck of MADGIG Networks pulls back the curtain on commercial Wi-Fi, as he recounts his remarkable 20-year journey from Acura technician to network engineering maestro on our latest episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. He doesn't just talk shop; Joseph dissects the common misconceptions about Wi-Fi, shining a light on the nuanced differences between the Wi-Fi we use at home and the powerhouse technology businesses depend on. If you've ever doubted the complexity of setting up Wi-Fi beyond your living room, Joseph's insights will have you looking at those invisible signals with newfound appreciation.

Embark on an enlightening exploration as we uncover the critical infrastructure that keeps our digital world spinning. Joseph doesn't hold back, explaining why commercial Wi-Fi solutions are far from your average plug-and-play and how MADGIG Networks tailors robust wireless and wired services for a variety of industries. From hospitality to education, Joseph's company stands at the forefront of connecting businesses to the future. This episode is a masterclass in persistence, passion, and the power of Wi-Fi – perfect for industry professionals, tech enthusiasts, and the simply curious alike. So tune in and join us for a conversation that promises to connect you to the hidden world of commercial Wi-Fi engineering.

MADGIG Networks
Joseph Voldeck
Bonita Springs Office
9990 Coconut Road Bonita Springs, FL 34135
(855) 806-6711
Monday - Friday 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
Boca Raton Office
2385 NW Executive Center Drive Boca Raton, FL 33431
(855) 806-6711
WEBSITE

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, cabo, jim Schaller.

Speaker 2: 0:10

Welcome, good Neighbors, episode number 141 of the Good Neighbor Podcast, estero. Today we have Good Neighbor Joseph Voldeck from MADGIG Networks. Welcome, Thank you, jim. How are you? I am doing awesome, excited to learn a little bit more about what you do and share with our community. So why wait any longer? Why don't we just jump right in All?

Speaker 3: 0:34

right. Well, what I'd like to say? In May 5th will be my 20th year in business and what a ride. It's been Ups and downs and you know you got to hang in there Goods and bads, but definitely enjoy. You know what I like doing. So MADGIG Networks is a group of engineers specialized in the wireless and wired space, with a focus on the wireless side for commercial Wi-Fi for industries such as hospitality, pharmaceutical, education, resort and marina warehousing. Multi-tenant small to large enterprise. We can consult, engineer and install the entire network, from the fiber structured cabling to the radio signal coverage all the way to the end user.

Speaker 2: 1:13

Nice, nice. So let's back up your story a little bit. How did you get involved in this industry?

Speaker 3: 1:19

Well, I used to be a technician for Acura and then I became a top technician for Acura top 20 in the nation at one time. And then all of a sudden the industry started to change and I went into parts and I didn't like that. And because I had such a technical mind, I just wanted to go ahead and do something that was technical but a little less laborious. You know, I needed something that I could maybe sit in the air conditioning a little bit more. And uh, you know the programmer. You know that was programming with car computers, so I might as well do in the air conditioning. And so I I morphed over to this and I got my first laptop, started playing with it, got addicted and then, uh, went into the uh business. I was working for a while and then I I totally jumped out.

Speaker 3: 2:05

Technology is a wonderful thing, right, yeah, we're not going to be able to do without it. We're not doing without it now.

Speaker 2: 2:11

Right, exactly, yeah. So are there any maybe myths or maybe misconceptions surrounding what you do that we can maybe clear up for our listeners?

Speaker 3: 2:22

Yeah, I think it's really important, especially for what I do. You know A lot of people think that Wi-Fi is an easily deployed technology and that's due to the rampant marketing of consumers from the likes of Comcast, best Buy and other big retailers. Consumer Wi-Fi is not commercial Wi-Fi and it's not the flavor that's in the hotels, airports, warehouses, marinas and enterprise businesses.

Speaker 3: 2:44

It is a lot more engineering and capacity planning and stuff for that. But that's the first experience that people have, and this is when they go into business trying to figure out why does this cost at this level? Well, it's most of the time, if they're not in the IT or they're not a big enterprise, they've never seen these price points or they never had to work with people that you know are I would call it talented. You know you got you gotta get really hard, really hard to get into it, and then it's a long time learning I mean, just like anything of an engineering.

Speaker 2: 3:16

You know you gotta spend time in practice yeah, yeah, and like you mentioned anything for business, it's gonna cost more. Because it's more, I'm gonna say robust, right, yeah?

Speaker 3: 3:25

it's much more robust. You know, I guess I have this little analogy that I use that I think is really helpful for people and, based on what I just said, if, if you go to, you know, best Buy, and you get a router, you know, and that's what they're called Wi-Fi, it's going to cover the house, it's going to go to China, which it won't, you know, just a little exaggeration there. You know that's their first experience with it. You know five TVs are a thing you know in their home.

Speaker 3: 3:53

Or sometimes they complain now because things are getting bigger, but you know that's their experience with it and their price point is 300 bucks, 400 bucks, and once upon a time it wasn't even that, you know, so price points were a little scary for them. And then they go to a Starbucks and there might be 30, 40 people on there enjoying streaming watching video. That really taxes a network or an access point, in this case too. But they don't realize they may have gone up five, six, $7,000 in equipment and engineering, you know, or whatever was designed, you know, going to the real high-end Cisco stuff that will support that network and that business and all that niceties that you're being able to enjoy, you know. Then you go to enterprise and there'll be a much larger deployment, you know. So your access point might be anywhere from $800 to $2,500. Let's say you need 30 of them. Think about where your numbers are going. That's not something they see, but their experience across the board is actually the same.

Speaker 2: 4:39

Yeah, and then we've become a society so dependent on that access that we don't realize what goes on in the background. We just know I can't get in my white pocket.

Speaker 3: 4:48

That's exactly right. So that exactly fits that myth that you're asking about. Yeah, it's ubiquitous and you can't see it, but you expect it. But somebody has to pay for it to show up.

Speaker 2: 5:00

Absolutely, absolutely so. Do you see anything trending changing in the industry?

Speaker 3: 5:05

most recently, yeah, I think the Wi-Fi 7 is changing a lot of things at this moment. It's going to make things a little easier for a lot of people, but you will. You know, you've got ai also. That's, uh, you know, doing some of the work that would be behind the scenes where you know, actually an engineer would take the time to do or eating up man hours or stuff like that. But I think we'll always still need the engineers being able to take care of that wi-fi and take care of that network. Uh, wi-fi 7 is going to be a good thing, but we don't really have any products yet that are catching up to it.

Speaker 3: 5:37

All of the consumer retailers are pumping that stuff out, and some of the big enterprises also, but not as much at that scale because, you know, I think it's just too new and you need more reliability, something that's been in the market and proven for a while. So, as we started changing the names from 802.11 this and 802.11 that, we started going to Wi-Fi 5, wi-fi 6, 6e, 7. So 6 has been around you know, know five years and it's pretty solid. So you stay there. You're always a little bit of a a before the curve. You don't want to go right into the leading edge yep, absolutely so are you from southwest florida originally no, actually from maryland, uh, better, florida.

Speaker 3: 6:21

I moved to what was it? Coral Springs when I was 14. I'm now 56. So I spent most of my life on the east coast of Florida. Moved to southwest Florida four years ago with my wife. We built a home in Estero and we love it. You know it's a big change. It's a nice change. It's not far. We stay warm. We get the break in the summer and break in the winter and you know it's just. You know, if you travel you come back home, you don't have to worry about too much.

Speaker 2: 6:49

Absolutely. It's nice to visit other places and know we can come back here.

Speaker 3: 6:53

Yes, yeah, got to start my traveling out of country next, next year, we still can there?

Speaker 2: 6:59

you go Absolutely. You've got to enjoy life while you can, so outside of work. Being a business owner, I know it's very demanding. Time's probably very limited. As you mentioned, you didn't have a lot of time to travel. What do you like to do outside of work?

Speaker 3: 7:13

Well, I enjoy fine dining and champagne. I used to like bourbons and the drinks and the hard stuff. Then somehow I just gravitated to good champagne. It costs the same, about a little bit more. If you can get 40 bucks then you need more bottle. But you know, and then with my family, you know, and we just really enjoy fine dining. I really don't do a whole lot more than that. I mean, I go out and take walks or whatever. But you know, definitely I would consider myself, besides a wireless and wired engineer, I'm a professional foodie.

Speaker 3: 7:41

I just love to look up restaurants and go try them. I mean, in Florida that's kind of really the lifestyle too. You move here, you know you got to go to restaurants.

Speaker 2: 7:51

Yeah, we've got some great restaurants around here.

Speaker 1: 7:53

That's awesome, oh we sure do so.

Speaker 2: 7:56

is there one thing you wish our listeners knew about what you do that maybe they're not aware of?

Speaker 3: 8:07

Yeah, I think that a lot of times I've actually had to you know, on the sales side of the business had to learn to I don't like this word really, but it's dumbed down a little bit to bring it you know to an understanding where you're talking to an intelligent person. But they just still have to understand you know what they're going to buy. You know information technology is an all-encompassing umbrella. You know information technology is an all-encompassing umbrella. You know it can confuse people. There are many divisions and branches of IT. You know, by comparison, just as you visit a general practitioner for a checkup, you may also need that general practitioner to give you a referral to see a specialist. You know that's the same premise.

Speaker 3: 8:36

So not everyone in IT is a wireless engineer or a wired engineer and a standard IT or managed service provider which the acronym for that is MSP, you know may not have the time or be able to afford a wireless dedicated engineer. You know to do an enterprise survey, design, installation support required for the project. You know another thing, that's actually, besides knowing the technical side of the work, you also need to know the business you're working with. Besides knowing the technical side of the work, you also need to know the business you're working with. You need to understand that a marina Wi-Fi requirement is not of a Wi-Fi requirement of a warehouse, and that the customer will judge you on that. You know we like to consider ourselves the specialists that you go to in order to find what you're looking for.

Speaker 2: 9:17

And that's the important thing. You know, that is an important thing you do.

Speaker 3: 9:21

I learned that a long time ago when I went to do a marina in Tarpon Springs, florida, and I hadn't done one yet it was years ago and we had done a lot of other industries and because we had a great reputation. But because we didn't do a warehouse I mean we didn't do a marina yet he didn't give us the job Interesting warehouse. I mean we didn't do a marina yet he didn't give us the job. So and I understood it later on, for the simple reason that you know a marina is going to need, you know a certain type of customer and what they're looking for. And if you, really if you start talking, you can see this disconnect in their eyes that well, we're talking about slips, we're not talking about aisles in a warehouse. You know what I mean. We're not talking about slips, we're not talking about aisles in a warehouse, we're not interested in that. And then you start to realize that when you get the experience in all the different industries, it makes more sense.

Speaker 2: 10:11

Yep, everything's a little bit different and customized to that situation, mm-hmm. So how would our listeners go about contacting you if they had questions, had needs?

Speaker 3: 10:22

Well, we have a really comprehensive website and you can learn a lot about Wi-Fi on there and it doesn't have to be really technical. Something you can learn and see the difference between consumer at wwwmadgig. com. We also have a phone number if you want to give us a call 800 number, 855-806-6711.

Speaker 2: 10:43

Perfect, any last words for our listeners.

Speaker 3: 10:46

No, we're just. You know. We're looking forward to being able to service you and help you out, and we also offer a Wi-Fi coverage guarantee. We stand behind our work 100% and that guarantee also states that if we make a mistake in our engineering, we will take care of that cost for you. If it's an extra access point, cabling or whatever we did, we'll take care of it.

Speaker 2: 11:09

Perfect Joseph, it's been a pleasure getting to know you. Thank you for being such a good neighbor and I hope to see you on the community soon.

Speaker 3: 11:17

Thanks Cabo.

Speaker 1: 11:19

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast, astero. Thanks, cabo. Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast, estero. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPEstero. com. That's GNPEstero. com, or call 239-296-2621. Thank you.