The GHTP members participate in a survey and debate if Wireless Fidelity popularly known as WI-FI, is a problem or an opportunity to explore and excel.
As the name suggest Wireless Fidelity (WIFI) has been an important part of our day to day life and queries that IT heads of the hotel industry come across and try to resolve at our best. But to dive deep into the concept and have a clearer understanding, one needs to know and connect to the basics which are as important as the biggest issues faced.
In the late 80’s The Institute of Electricals and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) defined 802.11 as the standard for wireless technology which over the years evolved and got revised and the latest is 802.11ac with initial speed up to 1.7 Gbps and higher. Simultaneously, Ipads/Tabs and Mobiles came as alternatives to laptops/desktops that had more receptive power requirements in comparison. This led to guest queries of no or intermittent connectivity issues in and around the room and public areas in a hotel.
Since almost all members felt that WiFi is an important offering, to get a deeper insight of this issue, the GHTP group initiated a survey – extracts of which are shared below.
What are the major reasons for guest complaints?
While nearly 31% of the participating hotels blamed inadequate Internet Bandwidth, 12% blamed untrained WiFi support technicians and staff members who lead to confusion. Though 10% felt that poor infrastructure is a major contributor, the rest of the respondents cited reasons beyond the given options.
When was WiFi setup installed at your hotel?
This was to check how many hotels are ready to cater to the high signal strength demands of today. 22% hotels were found to have infrastructure older than 2010 which means that they still have the older setup which was designed only to cater to the needs of the laptops. This is the right time for them to upgrade their technology as the future is to cater to the guest carrying smart phones, Tabs or IPads.
What are the different WIFI authentication gateways used by hotels?
Nomadix was a clear winner as 40% of the participating hotels were using Nomadix, where as 22% said that they use 24 Online as their authentication gateway. But the figures got interesting asnearly 31% of the participating hotels said that they use gateways like Reivernet, Quantum, FCS NetXcess, Inventum, Cyberoam, Brovis, BluePrintRF, EzeLink, HEP, Microtik router board, SIP server, SurfSonix, UCOPIA and Handlink, TP Link TL-WR1043N/ND v2. It was great to see the industry trying different products and exploring opportunities.
Is WIFI 100% complimentary in your hotel?
64.28% of the participating hotels have 100% free WIFI access for their guests vs the 35.72% who are still not providing this service.
What are the enemies of WIFI?
This question was in correlation to the operating as well as pre-opening hotels in order to understand and give an insight to the factors affecting the WIFI signals. 64.29% of the hotels believe that concrete is the major factor affecting the signals and therefore requires more effective and penetrating AP’s with lowest decibel (DBM) values. Other factors discussed were glass, water and plantations to which people had their own views as per the design and architectural challenges as per the locations. It is also recommended that the IT department should be involved at the designing/pre-opening stage of the hotel, so that while interior décor is maintained, WIFI enemies should not affect the guest experience with the services.
Which solution of AP’s are you using?
50% of the hotels participating in the survey were using a mix of outdoor and in-room solution, whereas only 26.19% of the hotels were dedicatedly using the in-room solution. This indicates that a lot of hotels must be facing issues with the WIFI signals in the rooms and public areas but still have not been able to overcome the devil of budget constraints and investments in the IT infrastructure to get the in-room solution implemented. They still continue to run uphill to try and meet guest expectations of uninterrupted WIFI connectivity.
Is WIFI setup done in-house or outsourced to a 3rd party enterprise?
60% of the participating hotels said that their WIFI infrastructure was outsourced and only 40% had their own setup. “Yes this is the fact that everyone knows that no company can have the initial setup done in one go but options like HP financial services give us an opportunity to own the setup in a phased manner,” suggested Badar Afaq, head information technology for Antara Senior Living Ltd, during the course of the discussion.
Which Primary ISP are you using for guest Internet connectivity?
52% hotels said that they are using TATA as their main ISP. Whereas, Airtel, Sify and BSNL followed the trend in the discussion. ISP’s like Vodafone, SysconInfoways, Primenet and Quadrant Televentures collectively contributed to the 17.14% of the hotel service providers.
Which WIFI Access Point does your hotel Use?
Ruckus, Aruba and EnGenius were the three names which made 65% participating hotels agree to the robust solution that these AP’s provide and have come out as market leaders and reliable devices to work on. Whereas 37.50% was collectively made up by Cisco, Altai, Tplink, Ubiquiti, Brovis, Radmax, Microtik, Unifi, Netgear, Edimax and Binatone. Other APs that came out of the discussion were Symbol (FKA -MOTORLA) and Compex.
With the results of the initial survey conducted by the GHTP group, it was quite clear that there are issues in the current environment which everyone agrees as tech leaders in the industry, but the need of the hour is to set the standards in such a way that they are followed across India. They should become the SOPs of the WIFI setup. This can only be done with the help of all coming together including the service providers and management of the hotels which have to understand that the expectations can only be met when we’ll start understanding the factors actually affecting the signal strengths in the locations which will certainly vary across the globe.
Having said that, this ever persistent discussion of WIFI and its issues always create an opportunity for all to continue the curve of learning and challenging the limits of their own capabilities to counter the issues arising on Wireless Fidelity.
Complied by Varun Pahwa, manager IT, The Claridges New Delhi, under the guidance of the GTHP founder Harish Chandra.
Survey Link: http://goo.gl/forms/j7hmovp0SY
