By Livia Rosu, HomeGrid Forum President
As global travel reopens for holidays and trips abroad, hotels, resorts and retreats are seizing the opportunities this brings. However, they are also faced with new challenges. The demand for ultra-fast, reliable connectivity as a standard feature of the hospitality sector continues to grow, and many businesses are rushing to facilitate the fast communication required by the post-pandemic crisis. Upgrading legacy systems and improving broadband connectivity is a top priority, as well as enhancing health, safety and cleaning protocols to meet new standards.
No matter where they are traveling in the world and which resorts they are selecting, guests are looking for hygiene protocols and high-performance Wi-Fi above all, from the moment they check in, until the moment they check out. Guests are also bringing with them more devices than ever before, from mobile phones and laptops, to tablets and game consoles, all of which they expect to use seamlessly throughout their relaxing stay. Failure to do so will result in customer complaints and can impact the reputation of the establishment.
Adapting to a post-pandemic world
With hospital admissions rising again due to COVID-19 cases, hotels are reinventing themselves. They are now acting as ad-hoc care centres for tourists with mild symptoms that are forced to stay in quarantine and need close supervision from medical staff, but don’t necessarily require in-hospital breathing aid devices. To enable longer stays in hotel resorts due to quarantine and flexible travel plans, IoT connectivity is needed, coupled with contactless and fast speed features.
In the post-COVID-19 world, the top 5 hospitality trends for 2021 include IoT connectivity as the second trend, highlighting the paradox of hotels and restaurants adopting relax-focused innovation and embracing technology at an amazing pace. The truth is that the pandemic has managed to disrupt and expedite a digital transformation in the hospitality industry.
To ensure faster, more reliable connectivity serves the hospitality use cases, HomeGrid Forum has been working with adopter member, TRIAX, and its TRIAX EoC solution to bridge the gap between legacy systems and newer technology through the use of G.hn and its GiGAWire solution tailored for broadband access use cases, perfect for extending the optical fiber speeds to aparthotels and hotel rooms. This is an exciting milestone, marking HomeGrid Forum’s first advances into the hospitality sector.
The need for GiGAWire
The GiGAWire solution provides reliable backhaul, interoperability and high performance for Multi-Dwelling Units – ensuring a vast array of devices can all efficiently operate no matter the size of the building. By using GiGAWire, a busy city centre hotel in Rotterdam is able to achieve fast Wi-Fi coverage with 117 endpoints, and a ski resort in Germany situated at 1,300 metres high has 40 apartments connected to reliable connectivity.
Able to work through three forms of media: powerline (PLC), coaxial cable (COAX) and telephone cable (TP), GiGAWire allows for fast installation and works seamlessly through existing wiring. This not only saves time, an important factor when hotels are full of guests and disruption must be kept to a minimum, but also saves costs due to regulatory and technical installation issues. Working closely with HomeGrid Forum, TRIAX was able to install the benefits of G.hn within hospitality environments of all sizes and ages to provide the required connectivity and infrastructure.
Connectivity around the world
At a luxurious retreat in the Southern Alps of New Zealand, a country first was achieved when TRIAX EoC, using G.hn Wave 2 technology, was installed. While the retreat offered guests a relaxing environment with a stunning natural backdrop, good Wi-Fi was rare, and the existing Wi-Fi offering did not live up to guest expectations. TRIAX had already provided a reliable TV distribution at the retreat, so utilized the same infrastructure for a state-of-the-art Wi-Fi upgrade. This would not have been possible without G.hn. By using existing coax cables, costs were reduced, the installation was disruption-free and fast, and full internal and external coverage was guaranteed.
In the natural environment of the Gulf of Porto, Corsica, TRIAX and its installer partner CORSICA SATELLITE, deployed the G.hn based EoC solution to all the chalets at La Casa Del Torrente, offering reliable, high-quality Wi-Fi that keeps the whole family connected during their relaxing visit.
TRIAX has also partnered with Samsung to offer connectivity to Spanish hospitals and keep patients entertained, allowing them to benefit from IPTV and Wi-Fi with no new cables needed. Smart Hospitality Displays from Samsung Display Solutions provide rich interactive entertainment, also functioning as a private Access Point for patient and guest Wi-Fi access. A TRIAX EoC Media Converter is discreetly installed on the back of each Samsung Hospitality TV, taking the IP signals in via coax, and providing the necessary LAN connection to the TV. The hospitals have been delighted with the high speed and low costs of the unobtrusive installation, which has been achieved without having to close any rooms or wards. Due to this, there has been no disruption to the day-to-day running of the hospital.
As the hospitality industry looks to get back on its feet following the detrimental impact of the pandemic, customer comfort and satisfaction is crucial. HomeGrid Forum is accelerating the development of G.hn and GiGAWire, with the help of its members, to ensure hotels and resorts can provide the fast, reliable connectivity that its guests expect.
You can find the full list of use cases addressed with TRIAX integrated solutions using G.hn technology here: https://triax.com/en/hospitality/case-studies/