The tweens taking up the seventh floor are instant-messaging while listening to Internet radio and downloading a pirated version of “Twilight” to watch later. The 200-person meeting in the ballroom has a full interactive multimedia presentation going for the next hour. And you do not want to know what the businessman in room 1208 is streaming on BitTorrent, but it is probably not a productivity booster.
These are just a few of the guests eating bandwidth at hotels today, and it is enough to break the average network backbone, or at least create bottlenecks. And no one—not those multitasking kids, not the conference attendees and certainly not the businessman on the top floor—is happy when that happens.
Strain on hotel networks is nothing new, but it is quickly becoming issue No. 1 for industry IT executives. Guests demand WiFi more than any other high-tech amenity, according to 82% of lodging executives surveyed last year by the American Hotel & Lodging Association. Some studies have shown that for business travelers, availability and quality of Internet connections is roughly as important as the bed, shower or cleanliness of the room. At the same time, customers are eating available bandwidth as quickly as hotels provide it, whether they are bringing along their SlingBoxes or using groupware for a corporate presentation.
“The trend is up, up, up—ever-increasing take rates and ever-increasing bandwidth demands per user,” says Douglas Rice, CEO of Schaumburg, Illinois-based Hotel Technology Next Generation. “I don’t know a hotel that has happy guests that hasn’t increased its available bandwidth almost constantly in recent years.”
But hotel companies, particularly those employing a free or partially free model of Internet access, are looking for more cost-effective ways to handle the surge in guest usage. IT executives are using a variety of technologies and processes to address the supply and demand sides of the bandwidth equation, from balancing and allocation tools to devices for accessing cheaper Internet service to implementing tiered access.
For Gustaaf Schrils, vice president, global technology for IHG, keeping up with bandwidth demand is challenging. Five of IHG’s seven brands provide complimentary WiFi in guestrooms and public areas, and hoteliers are finding that 60% of Internet traffic is being used for social networking, while use of IP-based video services like Hulu, YouTube and SlingBox has skyrocketed.
“Bandwidth costs money, and it’s very difficult in a free-delivery model to provide bandwidth that enables guests to do whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want,” Schrils says.
IHG is implementing a three-pronged approach to managing bandwidth supply and demand. First, hotels invest in bandwidth management software enabling available bandwidth to be shared equally among occupied rooms. Second, multiple technology homing devices allow properties to combine expensive, reliable high-speed Internet access from traditional telecom providers and less expensive, less reliable offerings from cable companies. These devices are being piloted in 100 Candlewood Suites properties and have proven to be a cost-effective way to increase connectivity.
Finally, IHG is pushing properties to invest in routers with traffic-shaping capability that reduce the bandwidth allocated to sites that are “less productive,” like gambling and adult sites that gobble up bandwidth. “It’s not that we’re restricting them,” says Schrils, “but we don’t want the guy next door not to get access because someone is on one of these sites.”
Traffic-shaping is currently implemented at most of IHG’s managed and owned properties in the Americas, and Schrils says the company encourages franchisees to adopt the technology. “Franchisees understand that this kind of technology is needed to go after the problem,” he says. “Without [it], on any busy day you’re going to have network congestion.”
With most of IHG’s brands in North America offering free connectivity for the foreseeable future (bandwidth demand is less of an issue internationally, where IHG employs a fee model), there have been internal discussions about providing a tiered model, with super-users paying for more bandwidth.
Vineet Gupta, senior vice president of technology for Fairmont Raffles Hotels International, says demand for bandwidth has increased 50% annually over the past few years, with Internet access now one of the top two amenities demanded by guests. Fairmont provides free Internet access to its President’s Club members while charging non-members.
Like IHG, Fairmont uses bandwidth management software to prioritize traffic. The hotels also segregate the guest network from the employee network. The hotel gets more bandwidth during the day, and customers get more at night.
But Fairmont is in a unique position: because it used to be part of the Canadian Pacific conglomerate, it has its own IP address base. Gupta gives out additional IP addresses when a surge in demand is expected, and Fairmont works with telecom providers to get more bandwidth as needed. The real challenge is in emerging destinations. “For our hotels in Kenya, there is no broadband available, so we have to provide Internet access via satellite, which is pretty slow,” Gupta says. “Most of Asia is pretty good, although the smaller countries are a bit tougher.”
Mark Fancourt, vice president of information technology for Hotel Plaza Group, Singapore, sees similar challenges in far-flung locations where there are bottlenecks at the supplier level. But providing cost-effective Internet access is a challenge at every location.
The company is working toward a tiered Internet service offering. “Many people do not require high-speed bandwidth to do simple services, such as collect and send e-mail,” Fancourt says. “However, there is a segment of customers who want that type of connectivity that will support gaming, video streaming or even video conferencing.”
In the future, Fancourt predicts hotels will move to an on-demand model for connectivity, “where customers can take up a level of service to match their need at a given time—30 minutes—as compared to a single all-day package at a flat rate.”
At Hamilton Park Hotel and Conference Center in Florham Park, New Jersey, WiFi is free throughout the facility, with wired room connectivity available for a fee. But a combination of increased groupware and video-conferencing usage on the conference side and younger guests on the hotel side is taxing the network. Yet, “the worst thing that can happen in the current economy is to overburden yourself with unused bandwidth,” says Jim DeVore, director of IT.
Fortunately, DeVore often knows ahead of time the bandwidth needs of a group. “Keeping in touch with a group’s internal IT staff, I get a clearer picture what to expect,” he says. “If a group knows that they will be doing computer training, we can increase our pool of Internet-only T1s.”
That is not to say there have never been snafus with the system. Three times in the last five years, Hamilton Park has had bandwidth issues due to equipment circuit failure. At the time, DeVore had to physically reroute wires providing bandwidth to other parts of the hotel. Today, a load balancer helps DeVore provide flexible bandwidth, adding and subtracting Internet portals as necessary. “It has made the whole Internet bandwidth guessing game easier to play,” DeVore says. Hamilton Park is installing a more expensive Digital Signal 3 to replace the T1s it been accumulating to combat bandwidth demand.
DeVore expects demand for connectivity to increase exponentially, and not just due to customer usage. “Additional devices will be using bandwidth,” he says. “VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is only the first of these kinds of devices. Eventually, every hotel room will include an IPTV, IP heating and cooling systems, IP safes, IP mini-bars, just to name a few.”