Overview
Challenges:
- Install a turnkey Wi-Fi solution for guests at every Best Western hotel by January 2006
- Install the solution with minimum of disruption to the smooth running of each hotel
- No unsightly cables or damage to the fabric of the building
- Offer ease of use for guests and flexibility for Best Western Hotels
Benefits:
- Improved customer service, as guests can access the Internet in their rooms
- Best Western Hotels can offer value-add services to its guests in the future – such as video streaming – and gain a new revenue stream
- Cost-effective solution with maximum performance and flexible management features
- Flexibility to cater for the needs of each hotel by offering a choice of wired or wireless access
ZyXEL wireless solution for a single average 40 bedroom hotel:
- 1 x ZyXEL ZyAIR G-4100 Professional Wireless 802.11g 54Mbps HotSpot Access Point with Printer Solution
- 4 x ZyXEL ZyAIR B-3000 Wireless 11Mpbs Intelligent Access Point
ZyXEL wired solution for a single average 40 bedroom hotel:
- 2 x ZyXEL VES1124 24 port VDSL Switch
- 40 x ZyXEL Prestige 841 VDSL Modem includes Splitter
Additional ZyXEL Solutions for Wireless and Wired:
- ZyWALL Range
- Prestige 660R ADSL Router
Best Western Hotels
Best Western Hotels is the largest group of independently owned hotels in the UK, with more than 300 hotels ranging from 13th-century country houses to contemporary city centre boutique style hotels.
Best Western identified High Speed Internet Access as crucial to attracting frequent business travellers, so it committed to installing the technology in all hotels by January 2006.
‘Do not disturb’
Most hotels only shut their doors to customers as a last resort, preferring to undertake any renovation or refurbishment work during quiet
periods or with minimum disruption to guests’ stay. Therefore, it was crucial that Internet access was installed without disturbing the smooth running of each hotel, and also that cables were kept out of sight and the fabric of the building left untouched. There was also the issue of user access.
Best Western wanted guests to find the solution easy to use with optional billing to each hotel room. It also wanted guests to be able to roam throughout the hotel while still connected to the Internet. For the hotel’s IT team, the technology had to be simple to manage and interface easily with other components as part of an overall network solution. Best Western also wanted the flexibility of offering wired or wireless access to take into account the variety of hotels under its name.
ZyXEL delivers flexible wired and wireless solutions
Best Western chose to work with Divine Internet,an experienced Systems Integrator for the hospitality industry, who recommended ZyXEL’s range of wired and wireless LAN products as the most suitable for the hotel chain’s needs.
ZyXEL’s wireless offering uses the G4100 Hotspot product to authenticate guest access and provide 
management access. Additional B3000s are used to easily extend the wireless network throughout the whole hotel with minimum disruption. This solution allows guests to roam freely from one part of the hotel to another while still keeping the initial Internet access session open.
Each hotel can also manage the billing of each room via the G4100. In addition, the G4100 allows 802.11x authentication, allowing authentication to other hotel billing solutions. ZyXEL’s wired solution provides each room access to high speed wired Internet, using the hotel’s existing telephone wiring. The VES-1124 is simply installed in-line with the existing internal hotel telephone system. A VDSL modem is installed in each room and the telephone is plugged directly into the VDSL modem as is the guest’s PC – as if they were in their own home.
Divine Internet also installed ZyWALL firewall at hotels without a protected network and Prestige 660R where hotels did not have an ADSL router already installed.
ZyXEL delivers value-add services to Best Western
With more than thirty installations taking place each week, Divine and ZyXEL were on target to meet Best Western’s January 2006 deadline.
The solution from ZyXEL implemented by Divine Internet offers Best Western high bandwidth availability, integration with existing hotel management solutions and ease of installation.
Guests have quick access to the Internet with up to 50 Megabit throughput on existing internal telephone wiring. It is also a future-proofed technology, capable of providing full multimedia performance – such as video streaming – to hotel rooms, which also offers lucrative value-add services for Best Western Hotels.
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