Mr. Guest

Mobile Technology

Next-Gen Wi-Fi — Not Just Email Any Longer

By Jason Guest, Account Manager, Americas, Aptilo Networks

The technology needs of hotel guests have changed significantly over the past five years. It used to be that guests, especially business travelers, were just looking for a room to sleep in. Families needed a bit more, with some additional entertainment options to keep everyone of all ages happy.

Then business travelers needed more amenities to help them get work done. Soon hotels were offering full-service Business Centers, and shifted to being a place where people could “get work done” and then to becoming almost a remote office, with all the capabilities that required including faxing and even staff to help facilitate complex tasks such as copying projects and shipping. While families, too, needed email access in their rooms for the adults to stay on top of their own work-related demands, the true demand for technology was being driven by the business guest.

Today, that scenario has turned on its head. While business travelers are still driving technology upgrades for hotels, the casual traveler, families, vacationers etc. are increasingly pushing the envelope with regard to new types of technologies and, in turn, what backbone support needs to be in place.

Why Wireless?

Guests need Internet access (in fact it’s requirement – just ask any seasoned traveler). Not too long ago having one hardline Ethernet connection in each room was sufficient (some higher-end hotels even provided the cable). Today wireless Internet has taken that old Ethernet cable’s place. Wireless is simply convenient for guests. That convenience is driving adoption.

You can see this evolution to wireless in the hardware available today: many new devices such as laptops are being built without that Ethernet port.

Wireless capabilities are being built into a myriad of products, and guests – business and casual alike – are bringing them all. Smartphones and wireless tablet devices are only the tip of the iceberg. Think of a family of five: mom and dad each bring a laptop for email and Web access to stay connected to work. The kids have iPods, maybe a laptop as well, smartphones of their own and a wireless portable gaming console. All of these devices are being used simultaneously, in the same room, sharing the same single Internet connection. That poses significant challenges for hotels with regard to bandwidth, but these challenges are really opportunities for tiered services that can increase loyalty (and revenue).

What are these new technologies? What’s popular now, and what’s on the horizon?

Video Streaming

Video on-demand (VoD) has been a tricky business for the hospitality sector. At first VoD played a vital role in in-room entertainment as a priced amenity offered by the hotel itself. Hotels could compete on being more “entertainment-focused,” or offering more of a selection, than other entities. The potential for generating revenue was great.

Video streaming has taken over that realm. The proliferation of portable entertainment devices such as the iPad is quickly pushing hotel-offered VoD into obsolescence. That trend is growing.

But this is good news for the hospitality industry. High-speed wireless is making video streaming convenient and popular. While streaming media may cannibalize some VoD sales, those sales can be more than made up with tiered pricing for wireless.

Tiered service lets guests “pay-for-bandwidth” for their wireless access. Guests using email or other low-bandwidth applications can pay a small fee (or none at all). Those looking to use higher bandwidth applications, including video streaming, YouTube surfing, Internet radio and the like, must purchase a higher tier of service, at a higher price.

Since an increasing number of people are using wireless devices to tap into these high-bandwidth applications, this can translate into increased sales overall.

HD Video

Video quality of this streamed content is reaching new heights, and in fact high-definition (HD) video is quickly becoming the standard. This places yet another strain on a hotel’s bandwidth.

Mobile Data Offloading

Cellular carriers are feeling a tremendous “capacity crunch” on their networks. More users have smartphones, and those smartphones draw on their networks for Web surfing, video streaming etc. These applications require much more bandwidth than voice, which is what operators originally built their networks for. Most operators simply don’t have the bandwidth to accommodate all of this traffic.

As a short-term remedy they’re looking to offload that data traffic to Wi-Fi hotspots or networks, including yours. Again, that’s a significant opportunity for hotels to generate revenue from all the Wi-Fi use.

Wireless Internet Telephony

It’s not just data that’s being offloaded to Wi-Fi networks. Increasingly voice is being routed over the Internet (VoIP, or Voice-over-Internet-Protocol). Skype (now owned by Microsoft) is a great example of a service that can make voice calls over a Wi-Fi network. Increasingly we’re likely to see more voice data shifted to the Internet.

Mobile Hotspots

Mobile hotspots are portable devices that serve as a full-blown Wi-Fi hotspot, allowing users to connect multiple wireless devices to a hotspot small enough to fit in your pocket. Plug in an Apple Airport Express to an Ethernet cable for instance, and suddenly all of your wireless-enabled devices can connect wirelessly to the Internet. AT&T’s Mobile Hotspot MiFi is also an example, using the cellular data as the connection to the Internet.

Additionally, carriers are starting to allow the smartphones themselves to serve as a mobile hotspot. The iPhone and Android smartphones allow users the option for their mobile devices to become their own mobile hotspots.

Solving the Bandwidth Problem

Right now the hospitality industry is experimenting with solutions to the bandwidth problem. One solution is to create different packages of buckets of data – for instance, 5MG of data -- to be shared by everyone in one room. Larger buckets of data can be purchased at premium prices.

Tiered pricing structures are also a great option if you have limited bandwidth to give out. Not only does it maximize your existing resources, but it fosters a customer loyalty as it sets up a reasonable expectation for guests – they know what kind of bandwidth they’re going to get, and they know they can tap into more at anytime for an additional price. Knowing it’s available, and having the hotel deliver what it had promised (whether that be low or high bandwidth) translates into satisfied guests.

Another solution is to monitor bandwidth closely, then allocate it to where it’s needed most. In the day perhaps your convention center is drawing a lot of bandwidth; in the evening that bandwidth can shift to guest rooms. Having a service management platform to monitor use, then shuttle allocation wherever it’s needed at any time, at a moment’s notice, can make the difference between success and failure in addressing these shifting needs for bandwidth.

Bandwidth throttling, or slowing download speeds when a certain MB or GB threshold is reached, is also an option. Bandwidth throttling can also “weed out” high-bandwidth applications. For instance, you can have your service management platform set to simply not allow download capacity beyond a certain point. Video streaming applications, then, would simply not work, while general Web surfing and email would.

Planning Ahead

Technology needs are changing fast. It is imperative that hotels keep up with the new trends, and do so in a way that will allow you to leverage future technology while maximizing budget.

Make sure your wireless infrastructure is "future proofed," meaning, designed to meet future wireless service management needs including support for voice, data and video services within a single converged network to meet future wireless service delivery needs.

Whether you’re building a new network from scratch or trying to get more out of your existing infrastructure, plan on investing in solutions for managing the service. These solutions control who has access and when, it can reroute bandwidth availability at a moment’s notice, and even monitor use so you can understand where demand is highest to generate revenue. It can also tie in to existing billing structures to streamline this process with vouchers, SMS access codes and more.

Jason Guest is an Account Manager for Aptilo Networks, the global leader in pre-integrated management solutions for control of billing, user services and access in Wi-Fi, WiMAX™ and LTE networks. Mr. Guest is responsible for sales in North America, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. Prior to joining Aptilo, Mr. Guest was responsible for information technology sales at Regus plc., the world’s largest provider of workplace solutions. While there he helped to introduce and implement the sales strategy for a new information technology products and services division. Mr. Guest can be contacted at 917-414-9262 or jason.guest@aptilo.com Extended Bio...

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