Setting up a wireless network throughout an historic hotel is quite
a challenge, and even more so when the building stretches half the
length of a city centre square. Ross Bentley reports
Chris Hermans faced increasing demand from business guests at the
Hilton in central Antwerp for high-speed access to the Internet.
But there were obstacles. For a start, the hotel was an historic
building, which made putting in more cables difficult, and then
there was its huge size.
The answer for Hermans, who is cluster IT manager for Hilton in
Belgium, in charge of IT for four Hilton hotels in Antwerp and
Brussels, was to implement a trailblazing wireless solution.
Before deciding, he weighed up several possibilities. One option
was to run digital subscriber line (DSL) into each room through
existing cables. But, according to Hermans, taking this route had
its limitations and implied reinvestment in the infrastructure at
some point.
He also looked at installing more cabling to each room, but several
factors made this option impractical. "The Hilton in Antwerp is an
historic building so we would have to have been very careful
installing cables. We couldn't just rip up ceilings," says
Hermans.
Another factor was the sheer size of the hotel - it stretches half
the length of the city's famous Groenplaats square. Running cable
throughout the building via its 211 rooms would have been a massive
job.
So Hermans decided on a wireless solution. While he won't be drawn
on an exact cost of the implementation, he says the wireless
solution was "at least 50% cheaper than the next cheapest solution,
which was DSL".
Hermans says his team carried out a site survey before they started
putting the wireless base stations in, measuring the signal
strengths and looking for suitable places to install the equipment.
In all, 37 access points were required. All the base stations are
hidden and are connected by cable to switches and routers. Hotel
operations went on more or less as normal during the installation.
"The implementation took two months and caused virtually no
disruption," he says. "The guests hardly noticed we were rolling
out the network."
This lack of disruption was crucial. "A hotel is a 24-hour
business," he says. "If a room is out of action, that equates as
lost revenue for us."
The hardware Hermans chose was supplied by Avaya. "At the time,
Avaya was the only supplier offering the ability to upgrade from 11
megabits per second to 54 megabits per second - you just have to
replace the antennae rather than the whole access point," he says.
The network was up and running by February, and has freed up guests
to connect anywhere in the hotel. "Guests can go where they want to
get Internet access - their room, the bar, the lounge, even the
outside terrace. They are no longer limited to where there is a
phone point," Hermans says.
He claims that, while other hotels offer wireless Internet access
limited to the business centre, for example, his is the first hotel
in Europe to offer wireless coverage throughout the premises.
Hermans says US guests are more au fait with the technology,
although a common comment he found is, "We've had this stuff on our
laptop for a while, but this is the first place we've been able to
use it."
Hotel guests without a wireless PC card can get one from the front
desk. They are then routed to a portal site, where they log on and
are given a user account. They can choose to pay either through
their room bill or directly by credit card. The portal route
prevents non-hotel users surfing the Internet for free.
Hermans is aware of the security issues surrounding wireless
networks, but he says, "Every system can be hacked - wireless or
not. There are a lot of factors that come into play, including how
the laptop is set up."
In fact, he says one of the teething problems for the new network
was he built in too much security. "Originally we had two firewalls
protecting the system but we had to take one out," he says. "The
VPN [Virtual Private Network] restrictions were too strict, and
conflicted with the Web browser. We had to fine-tune it."
With the wireless network in place, Hermans has plenty of ideas for
adding extra functionality. He is looking at installing wireless
barcode readers for minibar consumption, as well as voice over IP
(VoIP) phones for Hilton employees. "The paging system used by the
hotel staff is more than 10 years old. You never know what the
technology will bring, but we are ready for VoIP. There is no need
to invest again."
One issue Hermans has yet to resolve is how users pay for their use
of the network. He says several Hilton hotels in Germany are
planning to install wireless local area networks. In their case,
however, they have entered into an agreement where the hardware
remains the property of the supplier and both hotel and supplier
share the revenue generated by users.
Hermans is glad he bought his hardware outright because, he says,
"we retain control of the network. We think the provision of
high-speed Internet access has the same revenue-generating
potential as our PBX [private branch exchange] boxes. If Internet
revenues start to grow like telephone services have, we want to be
in control of the revenues."
To encourage guests to use the network, Hermans says the hotel is
keeping the rates at a reasonable level. "We are charging a flat
fee so people know how much it will cost," he says. "But at some
point we will have to put a limit on downloads. At the moment, it
is possible for users to download as much as they want - even
movies.
"We may turn to a similar model used by the GPRS [General Packet
Radio Services] providers where the fee is based on the amount of
data downloaded."
An initiative Hermans has introduced is a user manual to help users
get onto the network. "You never know what laptop your guests will
use, and you never know what level of competency the user has. Some
users are IT-literate; some are not," he says.
But sometimes users will require some help from the hotel's IT
staff. "There may be situations where the guest won't be able to
help themselves, such as if the operating system is not installed
as it should be, and simple things like the PC card slot is
broken," says Hermans.
So has this resulted in an increased burden on IT as far as support
is concerned? "You are always going to have people asking for help.
People who call about wireless don't call about a fixed-connection
issue. Whereas before I used to go to rooms to help with modems, I
now go to help with wireless connections," he says.
Hermans' hints
- Look at the solution to see if it can be upgraded at a minimum
cost
- Put together a comprehensive manual of issue to cover all
levels of expertise from the whizz kid to the first time user -
don't take anything for granted
- Consider your pricing models and service models
carefully.