Trump International Takes Guest Satisfaction in Miami Beach to New Levels with Smarter Wi-Fi System (United States)
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Trump International Takes Guest Satisfaction in Miami Beach to New Levels with Smarter Wi-Fi System (United States)
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Category: North America & West Indies / Carribean islands - United States
This is a press release selected by our editorial committee and published online for free on 2009-06-23
Teams with Hotel Internet Services to Deploy Expansive Indoor/Outdoor Smart Wi-Fi System to Speed Guest Responsiveness, Improve Staff Voice Communications
Ruckus Wireless™, today announced that it has been selected by Trump International Beach Resort (Trump) and Hotel Internet Services (HIS) to supply advanced Smart Wi-Fi products and technology for the four-star, Trump International Beach Resort, a contemporary four-star oceanfront resort located in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida. The new Smart Wi-Fi network is supporting wireless voice for staff and high-speed Internet data access for guests.
Trump’s new Smart Wi-Fi network takes advantage of recent breakthroughs in Wi-Fi technology, pioneered by Ruckus Wireless, that constantly form and route Wi-Fi transmissions only where they are needed over the best performing signal paths to deliver more consistent performance at range.
“Our decisions with respect to technology are always guest-focused first,” said Colin Gold, resort manager of the Trump International Beach Resort in Florida. “Smarter Wi-Fi systems that provide spectacular improvements in wireless economics, performance and reliability are revolutionizing the hospitality industry. For the first time, we are now able to leverage state-of-the-art advances in Wi-Fi to not only exceed guest expectations for consistent high-speed connectivity but also to build a ubiquitous utility that can be used for a new world of IP-based services.”
Gold noted that smarter Wi-Fi technology developed to dynamically cope with the latencies of multimedia applications opens the door to a myriad of new hotel applications ranging from IP voice to digital signage, point-of-sale, video on demand and even in-room energy management services.
“Wi-Fi is no longer considered an amenity within the hospitality industry,” said Gary Patrick, president and CEO of Hotel Internet Services, a leading provider of wireless systems and integration services across the hospitality industry. “Hotels everywhere are challenged to increase operational efficiencies while enhancing the guest experience. With smarter Wi-Fi technology that can automatically adapt signals to cope with ever-changing environmental conditions, this is now possible.”
Fewer Access Points, Better Coverage and Stable Connectivity at a Lower Cost
The Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi infrastructure replaces a legacy 802.11g network of 200 unmanaged access points (APs) throughout the hotel that were deployed on every floor.
In contrast, only 86 Ruckus ZoneFlex™ Smart Wi-Fi APs were required for the entire property with APs deployed on every third floor throughout the 34-story hotel. A ZoneDirector™ 3100 Smart Wireless LAN (WLAN) controller provides centralized management, administration and troubleshooting for the entire wireless indoor-outdoor wireless infrastructure. According to Trump International, the Smart Wi-Fi network was approximately half the cost and required half the equipment of competitive alternatives.
Discrete WLANs, all centrally managed through a single ZoneDirector, support the conference areas, voice communications and high-speed guest access. Using Ruckus Smart/OS software running within the ZoneDirector, SSIDs can be configured to be broadcast or hidden on select APs anywhere within the property. Centralized administration allows system-wide configuration, advanced security, simplified management and more efficient troubleshooting.
Smarter Wi-Fi Absolutely Everywhere Staff and Guests Go
Trump International Beach Resort’s new Smart Wi-Fi infrastructure covers the entire multi-acre property, including over 500,000 square feet of hotel space with 390 guest rooms and 22,000 square feet of conference space as well as beachfront, administrative offices, restaurants, retail shops, bar/lounge areas, lobby, pools and parking structures.
The large-scale wireless infrastructure is being used to provide guests with ultra-reliable, high-speed Wi-Fi access wherever they roam on the property as well as supporting wireless IP voice services. Trump is tying the voice over Wi-Fi service to its HotSOS guest relations application.
HotSOS used with Polycom® SpectraLink® wireless phones allows guest requests, service orders, and incident notifications to flow quickly through the hotel system so that the right person receives the right information quickly. HotSOS supports two-way communication, so Trump International Beach Resort staff can instantly update room, work, and incident status in real-time without calling a dispatcher. When a guest request is made to a staff member, it is entered into the HotSOS application which instantly routes the requests to the IP phone of the staff member responsible for filling the request.
Hotels Rethinking Wi-Fi as Multimedia Applications Emerge
Inconsistent performance, unreliable connectivity and difficulties in troubleshooting and managing the network drove Trump International to rethink its wireless strategy.
“We wanted to take a more strategic approach to Wi-Fi,” said Rod Rodman, IT manager at Trump International Beach Resort. “Wi-Fi-enabled multimedia devices are quickly becoming an integral part of our customers’ lifestyle.”
Coupled with this trend, Rodman noted, major advances were being made with Wi-Fi technology to make it reliable enough to deploy as a utility. “The timing was perfect. The challenge was really finding a system that could unify all our voice and data communications and work as a true IP utility. Until recently this just wasn’t possible.”
Some 150 Polycom SpectraLink 8020 and 8030 802.11a/b/g wireless telephones are being used by staff for push-to-talk multicast voice communications as well as voice over Wi-Fi calls. Ultra-fast and seamless handoffs between APs, let staff maintain voice connections throughout the property as well as in difficult areas such as elevators where metal and movement combine to wreak havoc on wireless voice connections.
“Before we installed the Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi system, staff had been forced to use walkie-talkies to communicate with each other throughout the property due to spotty cellular and wireless coverage issues,” said Patrick. “We installed APs in elevator shafts and other challenging areas to guarantee that calls wouldn’t be dropped. With the Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi system we’ve been able to overcome all of these issues with a unified wireless network that can be used indoors and out for stringent voice and data applications.”
Ruckus SmartCast quality of service technology provides advanced heuristics that automatically classify, queue and schedule voice traffic on a per user basis. Instead of a shared queue for all clients, four dedicated queues for every client ensures that a single misbehaving device doesn’t compromise the performance of others on the network.
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