Keep ahead of hotel bandwidth demands with high-capacity networking

Guests now expect contactless options for check-in and check-out, ordering room service and reserving other on-site resources. Properties with agile, scalable networks will be able to capture — and create — more opportunities in the wake of the pandemic as digital technology continues to transform guest experiences and expectations.
 

Contactless guest experiences

Contactless experiences have left its mark on hotels, resorts and conference centers. According to Statista, the top hotel tech popularized during the pandemic that travelers would like to see permanently adopted globally as of 2022 is contactless check-in and check-out (54%), followed by contactless payments (49%).¹ Guests who once balked at the idea of downloading travel apps are eager to use them now for mobile check-in and check-out, ordering room service and reserving other on-site amenities. Technology like mobile keys and voice-activated room controls are further enhancing the travel experience.

Guests bring multiple devices with them, and they expect seamless connectivity throughout your property. As work-from-anywhere trends continue, bandwidth-hungry applications like video conferencing will increase demand for fast, reliable internet across your facilities. A managed WiFi solution backed by a high-speed internet connection can provide guests anywhere on your property uninterrupted connectivity to stream movies, join a video conference, research places to eat dinner and more.

Some hotels are exploring additional opportunities for digitally customizing in-room guest experiences. Automated lighting, music, entertainment and climate control can be programmed based on saved preferences or past visits. Voice-activated assistants and other Internet of Things (IoT) devices are being used to further reduce touch points.

Guests are also expecting modern entertainment in their rooms. According to a 2023 study, 59% of guests indicated that the technology they would most value in a future stay is streaming services on the guestroom TV.³ In-room technology solutions can enhance the guest experience by offering a convenient way to check out, submit housekeeping and concierge requests, as well as make reservations for on-site amenities through the TV. Digital demands like these are anticipated to persist and even grow.

A growing share of guest amenities and business applications now rely on connections to cloud service providers. As cloud apps take up a larger share of network traffic, bandwidth capacity decreases and can affect performance across the entire network. A private Ethernet solution offers a secure connection to and from data centers, symmetrical speeds and low latency.

Hybrid trade shows and conferences

Virtual events and social distancing protocols have also left their mark on trade shows and conferences. On-site visitors are accustomed to using a property app to gain admission to facilities and sessions and connect with exhibitors. Searchable vendor directories, networked TVs and wayfinding tools can help guests find the information they’re looking for.

Event planners are using RFID technology and facial recognition to monitor attendance and guest flow in real time. The data can drive push notifications to draw guests to open exhibits. Digital tracking provides valuable analytics for planning and designing future events.

Entertaining guests around the globe can present unique challenges and opportunities for event planners. Some convention centers are streaming live 360-degree video to create virtual reality experiences for remote attendees. Others are experimenting with live commentary broadcast over social media and interactive content to deliver more engaging, immersive experiences to virtual audiences.

Hotel properties with the technology resources to provide rich media experiences for live and virtual guests will be positioned to capture more of these opportunities. Network traffic aggregation to support these distributed users will be a key challenge for managing network performance and costs, requiring new capabilities from internet service providers. Aggregating traffic serviced by multiple connections into a single high-speed connection can be more cost-effective and provides ample, scalable bandwidth for telecasting content to global audiences.
 

Security from physical and virtual threats

Protecting facilities from physical and virtual threats requires a secure, agile network. Security features such as IP video surveillance require reliable, high-capacity bandwidth. The aggregation of IoT devices used to track everything from linens to hotel staff also demands more bandwidth.

Ethernet via a high-capacity data connection can meet the demands of IoT security devices and camera systems with the ability to scale quickly as needed. It also supports flexible design options for inherent resiliency if one location should experience an outage.

Mobile applications for guest services create access points for sensitive customer data throughout your network. Private Ethernet connectivity to cloud service providers helps keep critical applications safe from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and other internet-based threats. If a system is disrupted, real-time replication across data centers and storage arrays can protect your organization in a crisis. High bandwidth availability ensures that saved data can be restored quickly.

How Spectrum Enterprise can help

We are a leading technology company providing superior products and services through our dense private fiber network in support of your changing demands. Our latest network enhancements make it easy, fast and cost-effective to deploy a consolidated network with high-capacity circuits delivering speeds of up to 100 Gbps for the following services:

Dedicated Fiber Internet: Achieve scalable dedicated internet connectivity with a 100% uptime service-level agreement (SLA) guarantee, symmetrical upload and download speeds and proactive monitoring to ensure the best experience.

Ethernet Services: As a top carrier of Ethernet services in the U.S., we can meet ever-growing data needs by connecting locations with a fast, reliable WAN solution backed by a 100% uptime SLA guarantee and built on a dedicated fiber infrastructure.⁴

Wavelength Services: For your most data-intensive applications, our dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) technology ensures high-speed data transfer with very low latency.

Connectivity services are tailored to your unique needs, with high-bandwidth connections that can vary by location. We can support the most complex and demanding property applications, from data-intensive video streaming and cloud applications to secure Ethernet WANs and IoT. Consolidated access with a single provider makes network management and security easy and reduces overall network costs.

No matter how advanced your requirements or how distributed your users become, we offer a simple way to provide real-time connectivity between facilities. We can quickly and easily scale your connectivity to support needs like internet traffic aggregation, business continuity planning and large-scale WANs.

Learn more about how Spectrum Enterprise can help you meet your network bandwidth needs.

^1. Statista Research Department, “COVID-19 hotel technologies or services that global consumers want long-term 2022,” July 6, 2023.
^2. Ibid.
^3. “Checking In on the Guest Experience: Widespread travel enthusiasm, upgraded expectations,” Gensler, 2023.
^4. “2023 U.S. Carrier Ethernet LEADERBOARD,” Feb. 12, 2023.