Comfort Inn Case Study (7/23/2005)
Bountiful Router Provides Strong, Reliable Wireless Internet Access and Improves Customer Satisfaction at North Salt Lake City Comfort Inn & Suites
Background
In a world that has become increasingly reliant on the Internet, many individuals don’t want to pass a single day without access to the Web. This has significant implications for the hospitality industry, as hotel guests expect their accommodations to include highspeed Internet access. Furthermore, guests are seldom content to connect to the Internet via a hotel desktop computer located in a business center or lobby. Rather, they want the ability to use their personal computer to connect to the Internet within the comfort of their own room. Most guests, whether traveling for business or leisure, regard in-room Internet access as one of the most attractive features a hotel can offer.
The Comfort Inn & Suites in North Salt Lake City, Utah, is a 40,000 square-foot building with 78 rooms spread out over three floors. Each year the hotel accommodates travelers of all kinds with various needs and requirements for their stay. Not surprisingly, many travelers share the need for Internet access and consequently the hotel’s management sought a cost-effective solution that would allow them to deliver a strong, reliable Internet connection to every room. The prohibitive costs of wiring the entire building to support a wired network made a wireless network the most economical and feasible solution.
Challenge
In 2004, the hotel’s management decided to implement a wireless network that would cover the entire building, including all 78 rooms. The factors considered in choosing a brand of wireless router to create the network included: cost, ease of installation and
maintenance, reliability of signal and signal strength. The management team, led by the general manager, wanted to install a series of wireless routers that provided a strong signal across a large coverage area, reaching even the rooms on the farthest end of the hallways or those situated next to elevators, above the pool and near other objects that generally cause contention in the network. The ideal router would deliver on strength, range and consistency, while still being offered at an affordable price.
There were many options available to the hotel from well-known makers of wireless equipment, but none of these seemed to possess all of the desired characteristics. The search for the right wireless router ended when the general manager came across the Bountiful Router.
Solution
The North Salt Lake Comfort Inn & Suites decided to install two Bountiful Routers from Bountiful WiFi. The choice was simple when the hotel compared the Bountiful Router’s performance against that of other wireless solutions.
The Bountiful Router, the first product in a line of wireless LAN technologies from Bountiful WiFi, provides a stronger, cleaner, more pervasive and reliable wireless signal than any other router. It does so by reducing contention in the network, expanding the coverage area and decreasing packet loss. The Bountiful Router’s key differentiator in a wireless network is its ability to cover a wireless footprint area that is two to four times greater than the coverage area of any other available wireless solution.
This huge coverage area, and the accompanying signal strength and consistency, are a product of the Bountiful Router’s innovative design. Due to this technology, the router can operate at the highest power level currently allowed by the FCC for wireless routers. Most wireless routers operate at a level of between 15 and 17 dBm, but the Bountiful Router operates at nearly 30 dBm.
The Bountiful Router is compatible with the 802.11 b + g standard and is a simple turnkey solution – it provides the benefits of an extended coverage area without using boosters, amplifiers, extenders or repeaters. In addition to providing a significantly larger
coverage area, as well as a more reliable wireless signal, the Bountiful Router has huge built-in “ears” that enable it to hear the clients and includes a variety of rich network security mechanisms. Perhaps most importantly, the Bountiful Router has a MSRP of
only $625. Most wireless routers intended for use by businesses run in the $600-$800 range, but their smaller coverage areas necessitate the installation of more units. The Bountiful Router actually costs less to implement as a wireless network solution because its superior strength and range reduce the number of units needed to cover a large area, such as a 40,000 square-foot hotel. The reduced number of units – businesses using the Bountiful Router often need only half as many units as they would with another solution– results in a lower cost.
According to Steve Oldaker, current general manager of the Comfort Inn & Suites in North Salt Lake, “The three key benefits of the Bountiful Router are its strength, coverage and dependability.” He chose to keep the Bountiful Routers in place after taking
over from the previous general manager. “I have talked with several hotels that are using other wireless solutions in order to gauge the performance of our wireless network versus theirs. The Bountiful Router consistently outperforms other products, despite the fact that I have only two routers in my hotel compared to at least eight in other buildings. I don’t know if we could get the kind of coverage and signal strength we currently have it we didn’t use the Bountiful Router.”
The two Bountiful Routers are placed in the ceiling of the hotel’s first floor, one in each wing. From that position, they are able to deliver a strong, constant wireless signal to every room in the hotel. Rooms on the third floor in the farthest corners from the routers still enjoy the benefit of a wireless signal running at 54 MBS and generally showing full or excellent strength. The same holds true for rooms located next to the elevators or directly above the pool. Such locations would usually disrupt a wireless signal and make it less effective, but this is not the case with the Bountiful Router. Rather, the four routers provide a wireless signal that pervades the entire hotel and is both constant and abundant.
Oldaker has been impressed not only with the Bountiful Router’s performance but also with the simplicity of installation and maintenance. In a schedule that is already packed from dawn to dusk, he doesn’t need additional headaches stemming from technology failures. But the Bountiful Router has lived up to its promise of ease of use and he has rarely had difficulty maintaining the network. “I have yet to see any drawbacks or disadvantages,” he says.
Additionally, Oldaker has been gratified to see the direct benefits that the Bountiful Router has brought to his business. “I have definitely seen an increase in customer satisfaction,” says Oldaker. “One thing guests do not like is having wireless Internet
access advertised and then discovering upon arrival that it doesn’t work very well. My customers have responded very positively to the service provided by the Bountiful Router. Above all, they like its dependability and the fact that it works consistently.”
Conclusion
The Bountiful Router from Bountiful WiFi provides an ideal solution for hotels seeking to deliver strong, reliable wireless Internet access to their guests. The router’s innovative technology extends the coverage area and offers a constant, abundant wireless signal at an affordable price. As in the case of the North Salt Lake Comfort Inn & Suites, implementing the Bountiful Router can increase customer satisfaction and help hotels provide guests with one of the most desirable hotel features in this Internet-reliant world.
“This product is a great fit for the hospitality industry, but I would really recommend it to any business,” says Steve Oldaker. “It’s difficult to find a product of this sort that is so dependable and performs so well. I worked in retail for 30 years and have seen many electronic products come and go because they are not dependable. I think the Bountiful Router has broken that trend.”
