Wireless takes off

Internet? Be our guest

For a Sydney hotel targeting international travellers, providing free wi-fi shows it’s as switched on as its clientele

Guests at Rydges North Sydney could not access a free internet service in commonly used areas. With more people spending more time on the web, hotel management decided to provide free wireless internet service in hotel public areas, including those serving food and beverages, to make functions such as surfing the web and checking email freely available to guests.

Hotel general manager Craig Simpson said the upgrade was driven by a desire to be seen as a destination of choice for international travellers to the tech hub of Sydney, that includes nearby businesses such as

Cisco, Vocus and broadband infrastructure builder NBN Co.

“They weren’t able to just sit in the lobby, bar or restaurant and use their laptop while waiting for dinner or waiting to meet with business partners,” Simpson said

“I was recently in the US and free wi-fi is very big over there. As one of the leading hotels, Rydges wanted to be the first hotel in North Sydney to provide wi-fi free of charge in commonly used areas

in recognition and consideration of our guests’ needs.”

“We also wanted to draw people out of their rooms and into the food and beverage spaces to drive food and beverage spend and it has been a true success,” Simpson said.

“It was our strong desire to receive a customised solution that was reasonable in price, had all the necessary features and was fast and easy to deploy.”

He said support and training was a "must-have" for the hotel. “Moreover, the solution needed to be manageable by our IT staff and technical support.”

Rydges was enticed to D-Link by the vendor's free wireless site survey prior to the build. And it had roaming and quality-of-service guarantees in the public areas. D-Link recommended a high performance firewall (DFL-210) connected to a Web Smart Switch (DES-1228P) for security. Three indoor access points (DWL-3140AP) that looked like smoke detectors were installed; they tune for optimal radio channels.

Access Points link to the Web Smart Switch for power-over-Ethernet secure client access. The DES-1228P wireless switch manages up to 24 access points and 200 clients.

Simpson likes the zero-touch wi-fi network: “You don’t have to reboot, you don’t have to touch it, you don’t even have to look at it”.

And the differentiation is a big marketing point for the hotel.

“There are plans to see this solution rolled out for all other Rydges Hotels in Australia,” he said. “The fact that guests can utilise their laptops in a space where they can receive services is great not just for us but also for the guests. All the guests like having free wi-fi and they are extremely happy with the speed and connectivity. The system worked straight away and we haven’t had any complaints.”