SkyMesh for Hospitality
If you manage a Hotel, Motel or Resort, you already
know that today’s guests are looking for more
than dial-up Internet access in their rooms. They
use broadband at home, and having to use dial-up while
travelling or on holidays can be very frustrating for
them. Dial-up users tie up your limited number
of guest lines for hours at a time, and that causes
frustration for other guests.
Improve your Occupancy Rates
More and more, guests are starting to expect High
Speed Internet Access in their rooms. If
your online advertising or Web site listing doesn’t
mention “Broadband Internet”, many potential
guests won’t even call you. Guests that
stay with you for three days might stay a week if they
could use a high speed Internet connection to keep
in touch with their business.
Can you Afford it?
If you’ve already looked around, you’ll
know that having High Speed Internet Access installed
in every room can be expensive. Most providers
will ask you to pay a small fortune for equipment,
installation and ongoing costs, and they say you won’t
make any money providing the service, but it will increase
your occupancy rates. SkyMesh is a little different. We
can show you how you can make money providing the service,
and increase your occupancy rates as well.
How can SkyMesh do this?
If you’re in our wireless coverage area on the Sunshine Coast, and
you have a sufficient number of guest apartments, and
your building is suitable, SkyMesh will provide the
infrastructure at a very affordable price and make
our return from your guests’ Internet
usage. Your
guests pay for the service and we pay you a commission
for collecting the money.
How does it Work?
If you're in our wireless coverage area on the Sunshine Coast, we use our own network to bring a high speed wireless Internet link into your building. This reduces our costs because we don't have to pay a third party a fortune to connect your building, and our ongoing costs are minimal. Then we use the most affordable technology - existing structured cabling, in-house ADSL or BPL (Broadband over Power Lines) to distribute the service to each of your apartments.
Will the Work Disturb my Guests?
As there's no expensive re-wiring to be done in your building, that helps keep our costs down. It also means minimal work around your hotel, motel or resort and minimal disruption to your guests. We can generally install the equipment in each room quicker than your staff can service the room.
Who Pays for the Service?
Your guests pay to use the service. The rates
you charge your guests will be affordable, and competitive
with what they’ll pay at other hotels, motels
and resorts in Queensland.
Is it Hard to Use?
For most guests, they simply plug the network cable provided into the network port of their computer and open their Internet browser. Their usual home page is replaced with a SkyMesh screen listing the services available (hourly, daily, weekly, etc) and the prices.
(Click here for example)
They choose the service they want, click to agree to pay for the service on their room account and they are connected. They don’t need to change their browser settings, or their email server settings, it’s done automatically by SkyMesh. Your front desk receives an email within minutes of the guest connecting advising their room number and the amount to charge their account. There’s no tickets for you to sell, and no messing around with credit cards.
Who Provides Technical Support?
Our in-room literature lists our 1300 number for guests
to call for any technical support they need, so you
don’t need to be technical or get involved in
any support issues. You just need to collect
the money, and earn a good rate of commission for doing
it. We send you an account at the end of each
month, less your commission.
If you’d like to improve your revenue and increase your return on investment, please email us at sales@skymesh.net.au or give us a call on 1300 759 637 and ask for our Sales & Marketing Manager. We’ll arrange a free site survey to determine the best technology to use. We’ll provide you with a written proposal outlining the necessary investment and the benefits of having SkyMesh High Speed Internet Access for your guests.
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About the Technology
There are four technologies you can use to deliver high speed Internet access to your apartments - structured cabling, in-house ADSL, in-house BPL (Broadband over Power Lines) and Wi-Fi wireless, and they each have their strengths and weaknesses.
Structured Cabling
Structured cabling is the best, most cost effective way to deliver High Speed Internet Access to each room, so long as it was installed in the building during construction. Re-wiring an existing building with structured cabling is generally out of the question - it means lots of noise and mess, and in most cases results in unsightly conduits running around the rooms. So, how can you tell if your building already has structured cabling?
It's rare for a new hotel, motel or resort to be pre-wired with separate Ethernet CAT5 cables for Internet, however many buildings less than 10 years old have CAT5 cabling for their telephone and intercom systems. Take a quick look in your communications cabinet and see if you have blue cables running from your PABX system to each room. If you do, and if there are four spare wires that can be used for Ethernet, that's great news for you and your guests.
In-House ADSL
Having your own in-house ADSL service can be a great
way to provide high speed Internet access to your apartments. Most
hotels, motels and resorts have a PABX and phones in
each apartment, so if the phone is in the right position,
ADSL can be the most cost effective option. The “right” position
is where the phone point is near a power point at a
place where your guest wants to use their computer.
If the conditions are right, SkyMesh can install a
mini-DSLAM (Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer)
next to your PABX and use your phone lines to deliver
the service to your guests. A small ADSL modem
sits next to the phone in each room and guests just
plug in and connect. The DSLAMs SkyMesh use
are ADSL2+ standard, and can deliver up to 18 Mbps
to each room.
Broadband over Power Lines
In many hotels, motels and resorts, the telephone
is wall mounted with no power point nearby, and that
makes it difficult to connect an ADSL modem neatly. In
these cases, BPL is the best solution. SkyMesh’s
electrical contractors install a “head-end” device
at the electrical switchboard, and high speed Internet
is injected into the three phase power wiring and appears
at each power outlet.
A compact, attractive BPL modem is placed in a convenient location in each room and guests simply connect to it to access the Internet. Guests have the option of moving the BPL modem around their room to wherever there is a convenient power outlet. BPL is just as fast as other technologies, however it's not as cost effective as structured cabling or ADSL. If the only other alternative is re-wiring an entire building, BPL is a good solution.
Why not Wi-Fi Wireless?
Wi-Fi is great for hotspots in cafés and coffee
shops, meeting rooms, airport lounges and homes, but
it’s not the best solution for guest rooms in
hotels, motels and resorts. Penetrating concrete
walls can be a problem, so for the best in-room coverage,
repeaters may be needed on every floor of multi-floor
buildings. In low rise resorts, repeaters need
to be installed around the complex.
With Wi-Fi, there’s a limited amount of wireless
bandwidth for your guests to share, and in built up
areas, your Wi-Fi network will be competing with the
local cafés and restaurants. Many guests
may not use Wi-Fi at home, so there is usually more
configuration support required. Guests may also
be concerned about WiFi security as it has had some
bad press in recent times.
If no other technology is suitable or financially viable, SkyMesh will do a free survey of your hotel, motel or resort and see if a Wi-Fi Hot Spot would work for you. We'll check the ideal location for an access point and determine where repeaters need to be located to ensure there's adequate signal strength in each room. We'll also carry out a spectrum sweep and ensure there's not too much competing Wi-Fi in the surrounding areas.
SkyMesh offers safe, secure transactions via credit card or PayPal so there are no tickets for you to sell and no passwords you need to hand out. SkyMesh manages the Wi-Fi network and supports your guests, so you're not involved in support issues.
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