Question

Configuring a Sonos system in a corporate / work / office network

  • 20 December 2014
  • 2 replies
  • 9729 views

Has anyone had success using a Sonos system with multiple components in a large, corporate-type network?

I work in an office of about 100 people with a wired & wifi network throughout the building. I do consultations in 3 different rooms during the day and would like to have a Play:1 unit in each room to stream music or radio while clients are waiting for me. Ideally I would like to do this in Party Mode, so that each Play:1 unit is playing the same content in a different room, then when I come to the room I can "pause" that Play:1, and "unpause" when I leave so it resumes playing. For my setup I would like to wire a Boost to an ethernet port, and have the Play:1 systems stream wirelessly through the hard-wired Boost (they are close enough that the wireless will be strong).

My question is: how should the corporate network be configured to allow the Sonos system to stream Spotify, Pandora, etc? The network is highly restricted to prevent everyone watching YouTube, streaming Pandora, etc at their workstations, so when I try to attach a Sonos unit to the network it cannot connect to any streaming service due to netowrk restrictions. After I explained my use-case, the network administrator said they could modify the restrictions to allow the Sonos sytem to access streaming services. Basically I need to provide the IP addresses and ports to be unblocked by the corporate firewall access restrictions.

Also, if the access restrictions can be lifted via MAC address filtering, does the MAC address of each Play:1 need to be assigned, or just of the Boost unit that the Play:1 units would connect to wirelessly?

Thank you! I have learned a lot already from reading the posts in these forums!

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2 replies

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Hello Chris,

There are specific ports that need to be opened to allow for proper network traffic, you can find those listed here.

In regards to the MAC address of the units, it is their serial numbers. You can have your network admin set static IP's for the devices as well as open the ports for these devices so that they have access to traffic and services. You'd have to check with your network admin but the units may need to be hardwired into the network instead of being wireless. You do not need a BOOST if you can set them up wirelessly, you can hardwire any of the devices, including the PLAY:1 and that will act as the 'one wired unit'. 

Let us know if you have any other questions and we'll be happy to assist you.  
I also have connectivity problem. A colleague wants to use the Play1 at work. We have of course a wired local area network, a secured wifi and several non-secures wifi networks. How can tell of change which network is the Play 1 connected to? How can I make it connect to a specific network?

Also, is there another way to connect Play 1 to the PC, for example a cable or a bluetooth connection? Then we would be able to avoid all the network hassle.