Focus on BusinessHOSPITALITY & LEISURE

CONNECT.RELY.RELAX. Streamlined IT networking

Jonathan Hallatt - Regional Director, UK, Ireland and South Africa, NETGEAR

WelcomeHalf of UK adults now own four or more internet-enabled devices. What this means for the hospitality and leisure sector is that a growing number of guests are arriving with not one, but several connected devices and expect to connect them all to the Internet. This has far-reaching implications for the connectivity you offer guests.

A recent NETGEAR study shows that the overwhelming majority of the UK’s small to

medium-sized hospitality venues – a group that covers everything from a small family

bed and breakfast or café to a major 250-staffed hotel – appreciate that wireless

capability is business-critical for customer service efficiency and competitive profitability.

The study also highlights that hospitality venues seriously underestimate just how much

wireless connectivity matters to guests. They believe that the facilities on offer and

quality of service are more important and their guests secretly welcome time offline.

They don’t. Our study found that a third of leisure travellers and two-thirds (67%) of

business guests refuse to return to a venue with unreliable or non-existent WiFi.

You might use WiFi as a revenue generator for your business or your business might be

considering new developments in services delivered via smart phones or tablets e.g.

ordering room service or activating door locks. If you want your business to keep up with

new technology innovation, then a reliable infrastructure is vital to make it work.

Are your staff computers backed up? Are you efficiently and reliably backing up your

customer data? Simple to install storage options ensure there is always an up-to-date

copy of all your data, should anything unexpected happen.

NETGEAR delivers reliable, affordable and easy to use IT infrastructure to support

hospitality and leisure businesses. Contact us today and we can offer a free, no

obligation site survey to understand your business needs, and help you to give

your customers a great experience.

*Opinion Matters for NETGEAR, the study surveyed 150 small and medium-sized hospitality and leisure venues in the UK, as well as 2,042 UK adults. The research took place in May/June 2014.

FOCUS ON BUSINESS: HOSPITALITY & LEISURE

One step at a timeA key question to ask: Can your network take the wireless and BYOD demands being placed on hospitality and leisure premises these days? You may need to expand your existing network to cater for this. The key is to work through the components of your IT infrastructure one step at a time to ensure all your needs are met.

DELIVERING A SEAMLESS, SECURE, WIRELESS NETWORK AND EMBRACING MOBILE DEVICES

Investing in the latest mainstream laptop or mobile device will help ensure that your network works to its full potential.

Watch out for wireless interference: numerous devices can interfere with performance if on the same frequency.

Make sure that your switches are fast enough for a new wireless system.

Mobile and ‘bring-your-own’ devices demand more out of your network —make sure you accommodate for this.

Allowing users to connect to your network using any device, from any place, at any time requires 24/7 networking monitoring.

SUPPORTING GROWING NETWORK DEMANDS

Just as broadband can differ in speeds available, so can switching products. For bigger network traffic demands, powerful 10GbE switches may be needed to eliminate bottlenecks and improve performance.

Are any of your servers virtualised? If so, powerful 10GbE switches will be more important to have on your consideration list.

STORING, MANAGING AND PROTECTING DATA

Market indications point to data doubling every two years. As paper-free environments increase, the need to be able to store, manage and retrieve data easily must also be met with the right security privileges and access rights.

Make sure you choose a network infrastructure that includes backup capability as standard.

FOLLOW NETGEAR’S TOP TIPS TO GET IT RIGHT

CHALLENGE

Beales Hotels is an independent, family run business founded in 1769, boasting two highly rated four-star hotels in Hertfordshire.

Free, reliable WiFi is something that guests expect and rely on when staying in any hospitality venue. The vast majority of Beales’ guests during the week are there on business, so uninterrupted internet access is imperative for them, allowing them to stay in touch with the office. They rightly expect reliable wireless access not only in their rooms, but also in the hotel’s public areas. Furthermore, conferences and other functions make up a significant proportion of the hotel group’s business; these guests also require wireless access so they can easily connect and interact with others – be it to communicate with another delegate, or socially share photos and videos with others.

With so much demand on the network, the hotel group started to feel the strain. The network design and number of wireless access points meant that some guests began to experience patchy and unreliable signal. Hotel staff were spending a significant amount of time with customers trying to resolve WiFi issues, rather than focusing on the whole guest experience. Despite their best efforts to manage the issue, the hotel group started to receive unfavourable reviews based on its WiFi provision.

SOLUTION

With the hotel group keen to provide the upgrade at no extra charge to guests, it specifically required an affordable solution that it could implement with no hidden cost.

NETGEAR undertook a site survey to fully understand the parameters of the problem and what level of solution was required, to give total and reliable wireless coverage, wherever and whenever a guest connects.

To upgrade the existing solution, NETGEAR doubled the amount of wireless access points in place across the two sites, resulting in reliable connections in all parts of the buildings. NETGEAR also implemented a central wireless controller within each hotel. This provided hotel management with a complete view of the deployment environment, providing simplified management and comprehensive monitoring.

RESULT

The reliability of the system has meant that duty managers no longer have to spend time addressing WiFi complaints and instead focus their time on what matters most - providing better customer service. Managers also have better control over the network and are able to check signal strength and any issues at a local level, without the need for external support.

The best endorsement or the success of the project is customer satisfaction: since the upgrade, neither hotel has received any complaints about WiFi connectivity. Customers now have access to a reliable connection and have noticed an improved level of service when connecting their own devices, for both business and leisure use.

“The WiFi upgrade went smoothly and NETGEAR has provided excellent after sales support and dealt with any operational questions, however small.” Chris Hall, General Manager, Beales Hotels

Beales Hotels enhance the guest experience with improved WiFi provision.

BEALES HOTELS, HERTFORDSHIRE

CHALLENGE

The Grand Hotel in Torquay experienced wireless interference from passing ships and harbour wireless networks. This four star hotel is considered a landmark in the region, and attracts both holiday-makers and local businesses to use its facilities.

Guests would regularly provide negative feedback complaining of interference and poor connection issues. When users logged on to The Grand Hotel wireless network they experienced slow internet speeds, dropped connection and interference from other wireless networks. This was particularly frustrating for business guests who needed stable online access to prepare for meetings and communicate with their colleagues.

The Grand Hotel wanted to provide a secure, constant and reliable wireless network so guests could connect to the network with their own smart devices like tablets and smartphones.

SOLUTION

NETGEAR conducted a site survey on behalf of NETGEAR partner, BCS Computers Ltd. The team identified the optimum solution to ensure a secure and reliable connection.

The system, which took BCS Computers Ltd. less than two weeks to install, has two WAN ports, thereby utilising two routers rather than relying on one broadband line, meaning that there is a fully redundant line which provides a ‘fail over’ in the event of an issue with the primary WAN connection.

Both lines are connected to the NETGEAR ProSecure Unified Threat Management (UTM) device. The NETGEAR ProSecure UTM25 provides a secure gateway to the internet and protects the hotel guests’ wireless devices, acting as a firewall and content filtering device. This is connected to the NETGEAR ProSafe WC7520 wireless controller, which enables BCS Computers to configure and manage their portfolio of wireless access points and ensure 100 percent coverage and no black spots.

In addition, it means the hotel can load-balance the access points to ensure that there is even load spread across the network. This is especially useful for the high-demand conference and function rooms.

RESULT

Using NETGEAR ProSafe wireless access points, the hotel has been able to extend access to four floors and 132 rooms. The bar and five conference rooms/function rooms have also been upgraded with improved wireless access. Since the installation, customer feedback has improved greatly with guests expressing satisfaction with the speed, reliability and connection of The Grand Hotel’s wireless connection. The interference issues have been completely resolved.

It was The Grand Hotel’s commitment to provide guests with a first class experience that prompted the IT team to choose the highest specification wireless networking solution from NETGEAR.

“We have found a remarkable improvement in speed and reliability since installing NETGEAR products and this has been of great benefit.” Henrietta Lilley - Group Marketing and PR Manager, Grand Hotel

Luxury hotel provides superior connectivity to 132 rooms thanks to NETGEAR products.

THE GRAND HOTEL, TORQUAY

FOCUS ON BUSINESS: HOSPITALITY & LEISURE

THE BASIC BUILDING BLOCKS FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE WIRELESS

The Enterprise-grade NETGEAR ProSAFE WC9500 High Capacity Wireless Controller is ideal for medium to large sized hospitality venues with up to 600 rooms where high performance and scalability are key. It’s perfect for venues where speeds of up to 900Mbps and 11ac readiness is required. It will efficiently support publics areas such as lobbies, restaurants and conference rooms or outdoor areas and is recommended if in-room dedicated wireless or wireless Access Points are required. Designed with simplicity in management and ease of use to enable users to set up the system in minutes.

The NETGEAR ProSAFE WC7600 Premium Wireless Controller offers a high-performance and fully-featured wireless LAN architecture to meet the demands of small to medium-sized hospitality venues with up to 150 rooms. The WC7600 simplifies wireless deployments and network management to deliver safe and secure wireless for both staff and guests. It’s recommended if 11ac readiness is required for the future and if you want to support higher throughput in public areas, outdoor WiFi coverage or dedicated in-room wired or wireless Access Points.

You should consider the NETGEAR WC9500 or WC7500 Wireless Controller if:-

Rich multi-media content over wireless is important

Dedicated ‘in-room wireless’ access points are required

There is a high concentration of wireless clients

Premium access point management is required

Automated service load balancing is needed for heavily congested areas / peak usage needs / areas of high interference allowing traffic to move from 2.4 GHz to the less congested 5 GHz band

Migration to 802.11ac is required

Outdoor access point management is needed now or in the future

The NETGEAR ProSAFE WC7520 Wireless Controller offers an affordable, value-based Wireless LAN architecture to meet the demands of hospitality venues with up to 100 rooms needing simple, easy-to-use wireless management. The WC7520 offers 11n Access Points with speeds up to 600Mbps.

By combining the Wireless Controller with latest generation 11n NETGEAR ProSAFE WNDAP360 access points, you will deliver superior reach and speeds – up to 15x faster than 11a or 11g legacy wireless networks. Include NETGEAR WND930 Weatherproof Outdoor access points to extend network reach beyond fixed walls and provide WiFi access for outdoor environments. The result is a seamless, high performance wireless service across multiple rooms, public areas and outdoor spaces.

WHAT IT NETWORK SOLUTION DOES YOUR HOSPITALITY AND LEISURE ENVIRONMENT NEED?

Want in-room dedicated wireless and wired access? Consider the WN370 wall mount access point.

Do you have busy conferencing facilities putting pressure on your wireless network? Upgrade the WNDAP360 to the WNDAP660 access point.

WHAT ELSE SHOULD YOU ALSO CONSIDER AS YOUR BUSINESS GROWS?

The NETGEAR ProSAFE M5300 Series of Managed Switches provide a resilient and reliable way to support increasing network traffic needs over time. As more devices and users connect to your network, Gigabit connectivity to end devices like printers, PC’s, laptops and access points, can be aggregated and connected seamlessly using powerful 10GbE speeds to physical or virtualised server and storage environments.

For hard-to-wire areas or where you want to keep cabling reduced, especially in older and listed buildings, Power over Ethernet (PoE) switches like the ProSAFE GS728TP, allow you to physically connect compatible wireless access points using just the switching network itself. Using one switch, connect access points, through to surveillance cameras making deployment simple, cost-effective and fast.

STORING, MANAGING AND PROTECTING YOUR BUSINESS’S DATA

Affordable, reliable and easy to use, NETGEAR’s ReadyNAS devices (ReadyNAS 312, 314, 316, 516, 716) redefine the concept of storage for hotels and leisure venues. While your customer and staff information is stored without the worry of data loss, new cloud options mean you can now access details where you work, as well as in your home or on the move.

ReadyNAS protects your site with built-in features including:

Unlimited snapshots capture and restore multiple versions of valuable data

XRAID2 provides on-going protection from drive failures

Cloud-based replication makes it easy to move data off-site for protection

ReadyNAS Real-Time Anti-Virus stops risk before it starts

NETGEAR ReadyDATA is a unified storage (NAS/SAN) platform featuring enterprise-class technology designed for businesses of any size. With unlimited snapshots, block-level replication, native deduplication, and SMB-friendly form factors, ReadyDATA frees high-end data protection, disaster recovery and data integrity technologies from the oppressive contracts, license agreements, and costs of ‘Big IT’ vendors.

NETGEAR ReadyRECOVER is a complete backup and recovery appliance designed for small and medium-sized business. Next-generation file system technology guarantees data integrity, efficient use of storage capacity and minimal impact to computing resources. With ReadyRECOVER, full backups are instantly created every 15 minutes and can independently be used to quickly and reliably restore files, folders or systems to any platform - physical or virtual.

DON’T FORGET! NETGEAR offers a FREE wireless site survey for your hospitality and leisure environment. Email: sitesurveys-uk@netgear.com or call +44 (0)1344 458200 for more details.

FOCUS ON BUSINESS: HOSPITALITY & LEISURE

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