Case Study: The National Gallery achieves reliable Wi‑Fi for millions of visitors and new guest insights with Cisco Meraki

Providing reliable Wi-Fi service to millions of visitors while gaining new guest insights

The National Gallery, the fourth most visited art museum in the world, needed reliable, easy‑to‑manage Wi‑Fi across a historic, thick‑walled building to support over 6 million annual visitors plus corporate devices and ticketing scanners. After a competitive tender, Cisco Meraki was selected for its cloud‑managed MR wireless portfolio (notably MR34 APs) along with MS switching and MX security/SD‑WAN, offering 802.11ac capability, straightforward per‑device licensing, and an intuitive Meraki dashboard.

Cisco Meraki deployed more than 180 MR34 access points across five floors (20 initially in the Sainsbury Wing), configured separate SSIDs for visitors, corporate 802.1X devices and ticketing, and used features like bandwidth caps, scheduled guest access, auto‑mesh and Layer‑7 monitoring. The plug‑and‑play, centrally managed solution delivered measurable results: about 2,000 unique wireless clients per day, over 2 TB of monthly traffic, no negative feedback on connectivity, and built‑in footfall analytics at no extra cost—providing both a seamless visitor experience and actionable guest insights.

The National Gallery

Stuart Ewins

IS Systems Manager