Case Study: T.G.I. Friday’s achieves PCI‑compliant, secure pay‑at‑table wireless and low‑cost centralised Wi‑Fi with HPE Aruba Networking

For T.G.I. Friday’s UK, it’s T.G.I. Aruba Networks

T.G.I. Friday’s UK needed a simple, secure wireless solution after its legacy network couldn’t meet PCI requirements for the company’s card-at-table payment model. The growing chain wanted minimal in‑store equipment, low costs and fast rollouts as it expanded from mid‑2000s scale to dozens of sites, while also gaining visibility into wireless security and neighbourhood congestion.

They deployed Aruba Instant AP‑105 access points with AirWave management, RAPIDS intrusion detection and ADSL routers with 3G backup—installed and supported by reseller partner Astro. The result: PCI‑compliant, centrally managed wireless across ~300 APs, roughly half the cost of controller-based alternatives, faster store rollouts, robust IDS/alerts and multiple secure SSIDs (payments, business and future guest/EPOS), with resilient payment routing over 3G when ADSL fails.

T.G.I. Friday’s

Jeremy Dunderdale

Head of IT