HSIA – high-speed guest Internet access – is now reaching that stage where it is an expected commodity within the hotel/motel room in Australia. Staying connected while on the move has become an accepted part of the Australian lifestyle, illustrated with Internet access penetration now at 74.3%of the population.

Guests expect to have Internet access at properties where they decide to stay and your potential guest will know in advance whether or not you have it. The tried and tested argument “my guests don’t ask for it” is exhausted. It is the guest that never checks in who is the one you missed because they decided to stay somewhere else that has HSIA.

When a property is considering installing guest Internet access, there are a number of things a property should consider. These include the following questions that will influence the style of service that the property decides to adopt.

•Where on the property will I provide coverage? Will the Internet service be in all of the rooms and the common areas, inside and outside, or just in one central area?

•How will the Internet access be provided? Access can be provided by a blue cable in the room, wirelessly or via television wiring, on the television, on a computer in the property or via the guests own laptop.

•Do I want a system that is integrated into my current IT systems, talking to my PMS system or do I want it stand alone?

Systems can be automated requiring no staff interaction or you can have a system that has guest access managed by your staff. If you have an automatic system it requires little or no maintenance as all charges will automatically post to your guest folio in your PMS if the guest uses the service. If you have a manual network you will need to ensure all of your staff know how to use the system.

•How will I support my guests who want to use the service? Some guests may need help to get connected. Will you have someone on site to help them or use a help desk service that the guest can call? Between what hours can a guest get support, remembering that Internet usage peak times are between 7am and 9am and 7pm and 11pm.

•Will you charge guests for access or give the access away for free? If you own the equipment you have the flexibility to provide free access to all or preferred guests. If you don’t own the equipment you will have little influence over the prices charged. Guests generally expect to pay for Internet access and it can be a revenue generator not just a cost.

•Will I allow my guests access to everything on the Internet or will I block some content?

The Internet offers a plethora of content, some of which is very large in size. You may wish to block some content (such as movie and music downloads) that use up lots of bandwidth as your ISP may charge you for exceeding your monthly download limit. You may also want to block illegal or inappropriate content.

•Do you want to own the system or do you want someone else to own it? “User owns” or “revenue share” models are the two most popular ways to get an HSIA network. User owns means that you own the equipment and it becomes an asset of the property. Most providers will either sell it or lease it to you, which means it becomes either a tax deduction or a depreciating asset. If you own it you can control how much you charge for access and retain all of the revenue. Revenue share means that someone else installs in the equipment, someone else owns it and someone else makes the majority of the money that the system generates. Revenue share generally gives between five to 15% of all revenue back to the property.

How you install the access on your property will also depend on a number of factors, including but not limited to:

•How big is your property? Are you on acreage, is the building single storey or multi storey building, are you a caravan park or do you have multiple buildings on your property?

•What is your building made of? Materials such as brick, double brick, sheet metal, trees and distance between buildings can have an influence on how you install your HSIA.

•How much of your site do you want to cover? If you have a large site, one device sitting in reception is not going to offer coverage in every room. You may need multiple devices that can need cabling and power, which will be in addition to the cost of the equipment.

•What equipment do you already have on site? These days HSIA can be provided using wireless, telephone wiring and television wiring.

Wireless: This travels through the air and requires no cables for a guest to connect to. It involves installing wireless devices such as antennas, access points and boosters on a site in multiple locations. Wireless can be the hardest to install properly as you may need multiple devices to get a signal that covers your whole property. The belief that you can install one device and cover an eight-story building with wireless Internet access is a common misconception!

Telephone wiring: If you have telephone wiring in the building this can be used to get a signal to each room. It requires no additional cabling and involves installing a device alongside the phone system and a small device in each room. All the guest will see is a blue cable to connect to their laptop.

Television cabling: Coax solutions allow you to use your television wiring to provide Internet access in each room. One device is installed at the junction box of your television antenna input and another small device in each room. All the guest will see is a blue cable to connect to their laptop.

Ideally equipment you already have on site will be used to create a HSIA network.

Now that you have an idea as to how you could get HSIA on your property, it is also important to consider what else you can do with the service. It is no longer just about Internet access, it is almost like, my Internet access network is just the road, and now what vehicles can I drive on it?

As the Internet and Internet technologies continue to expand it becomes about services, how can you use this network to better service your guests, how can you use it to:

•Get your guests to spend more money?

•Get your guests to use more services?

•Service your guests better with no extra resources?

•Use your staffing resources more effectively?

New products and services coming for hotels and motels that can use your Internet service include:

•Internet radio - some radio stations now broadcast over the Internet. You can listen to your favourite radio station from home (local or overseas) while you are travelling. There are also Internet radio alarm clocks that connect to the net.

•IPTV - this is television that is delivered via the Internet. More and more stations are taking to the Internet and there are television stations that you can watch from overseas. This requires the television to be connected to the Internet.

•Movies and videos on demand - instead of having DVD players and physical DVDs you would have them stored on a server and then play to the room as the guest wants it. Generally you would have 100 movies that change every week, keeping them up to date and fresh.

•Online compendiums - with the move to “green” imagine if your whole guest compendium could be seen on the television when the guest turned it on. No more ripped or missing pages and it can be updated daily without the need to print it out for every room.

•E-commerce - what if your guest could order room service through their laptop or the television and didn’t need to call the kitchen or speak to hotel staff? What if you could have the room service menu and all hotel information in multiple languages? E-commerce is the latest technology to emerge in the accommodation industry. A hotel/motel room can be connected to outside services to book things such as taxis, tours or food online 24 hours a day without the need to speak to your staff.

Just imagine you have a guest from Germany. They turn up to their room, they open the door and the radio is playing their favourite local German radio station. They turn on the television and the welcome message and daily hotel news is on the television in German. The guest wants room service so on the television they can see the menu in English and in German and they can order by using the television – no more struggling to know the right words and no ordering something that they want when they are in a country where they don’t speak the language well (if at all!)

Would this improve the experience the guest has while staying at your property? How many people do you think they would tell and do you think that they may just come back?

Technology is something that is no longer just for techies, it can be used to help you run your business better and sell beds, which at the end of the day is the thing that you all need to do best.

Rochelle White - National channel manager for hospitality – NetComm

Rochelle White is the national channel manager for hospitality at NetComm. She has been working with hotels and motels closely for the last two years and has a background in IT and telecommunications. As an Australian owned and operated company, NetComm has been a leading provider of data communications products for over 25 years and has a division dedicated to the hospitality and accommodation markets.