How Gradient powers one of America’s largest innovation hubs with Meter

Gradient is one of the largest innovation hubs in the country, occupying a beautifully restored 110,000-square-foot OTASCO warehouse in downtown Tulsa. Home to more than 3,700 members with 160 offices, Gradient supports hundreds of businesses—from solo entrepreneurs to venture-backed startups to the most established brands—all sharing a single, complex network environment.

For CEO Devon Laney, building the network for Gradient's $40M downtown hub drew on prior experience. Before Gradient, Devon served as President and CEO of Innovation Depot in Birmingham, Alabama, where he experienced firsthand the financial and operational burden of building enterprise-grade networking for a 140,000-square-foot coworking space.

“We used Meraki, and the upfront cost for hardware and ongoing licensing was a huge issue,” Devon recalls. That experience shaped his approach when planning Gradient's network infrastructure. He knew there had to be a better way.

Building "best in class" from the ground up

Before choosing any technical partners for Gradient, Devon and his team visited coworking spaces across the country to develop a strong point of view on what "best in class" would look like. Their requirements were specific: dynamic VLANs to securely segment traffic for each member company, integration with their coworking management platform, and Passpoint/HotSpot 2.0 support for seamless device authentication.

“We're not a single-tenant building,” Devon explains. “Every day, hundreds of different organizations need secure, reliable connectivity while still accessing shared resources like A/V systems and printers. That's a complex ask.”

The network would serve as the operational backbone for everything at Gradient—cameras, access controls, A/V systems, and the thousands of devices members bring through the door each day. Reliability and uptime weren't nice-to-haves; they were requirements.

A partner, not just a vendor

When Devon found Meter, the model immediately clicked. Meter's approach—bundling network management, support, ISP procurement, and end-to-end installation into predictable monthly pricing—addressed everything that had frustrated him about traditional networking solutions.

But what ultimately set us apart was the way Meter approached designing the member experience. Meter worked with Gradient to build an ideal member flow: members register via the portal, get provisioned access to the network via 802.1x, and are automatically routed to their correct VLAN based on their member company. When members leave, access is automatically deprovisioned.

From blueprints to bandwidth

Multiple predictive Wi-Fi surveys informed the final network design, and Meter's operations team collaborated closely with the installation crew to align with Gradient's broader construction timeline.

Meter also developed new integrations with multiple third-party systems to ensure a seamless member onboarding experience. The goal was simple: members shouldn't have to think about the network. They should just connect and work.

Proactive support that goes beyond the ticket

For Erin and the Concierge team, Meter's proactive approach to support has been transformative. When certain issues couldn't be resolved remotely, the Meter team deployed observers to understand the "on the ground" wireless experience, using packet captures to troubleshoot issues affecting end users, and spending time onsite with impacted members to diagnose root causes.

“They don't just close tickets,” Erin says. “They actually solve problems.”

Finding secure workarounds for members whose devices aren't Passpoint-compatible, enabling the Concierge team to troubleshoot connectivity issues themselves, responding with a level of collaboration that feels like working with colleagues rather than a vendor—this is what "extension of the team" looks like in practice.

The network that never sleeps

Today, over 600 members seamlessly authenticate into Gradient's secure network each day, along with a myriad of IoT devices powering the hub's operations. The network reliably supports everything Gradient does, from the cameras monitoring the space to the access controls securing it to the A/V systems bringing events to life.

For Devon, it comes down to a simple truth about running an innovation hub:

Looking ahead, Gradient is future-proofing with planned upgrades to Wi-Fi 7 access points, scaling the network to power continued growth. With Meter as a long-term partner, Devon and Erin can focus on what matters most: supporting the entrepreneurs and businesses building the future in Tulsa.