Last Updated on December 4, 2019 by Christopher G Mendla
Most of the upscale resorts and hotels are offering internet access. In many cases, the internet access is wireless.
The problem is that the wireless coverage is often spotty at best. We recently stayed at a four star resort. Supposedly they had coverage in the rooms. The reality was that the signal stregnth was very low and the connectivity would drop every 5 minutes or so. This made it next to useless.
I also noticed that there were a lot of people in the lobby area with their laptops. They all said that the connectivity in their rooms was poor so they were bringing their laptops to the lobby.
This particular resort is less than 5 years old. The rooms are quite expensive going for about 500+ per night during the off season. My guess is that the resort planners simply don’t pay enough attention to providing wireless with effective coverage. They most likely leave the design to someone without the degree of experience required.
A year or so back, wireless access was somewhat of a luxury. However, in today’s world, people are increasingly dependant on being connected.
My suggestions to hotel owners are
- Be proactive in surveying your guests with regard to their connectivity experience. Find out if it meets their needs.
- If you see a lot of people in your lobby every day, that might be a hint that the room connectivity is poor.
- Do a signal strength survey of the rooms. Map out your coverage and take measures to provide additional coverage. (ie. better antennas on the WAPs, more access points etc).
As far as my situation, I ended up using my Sprint cellular aircard instead of the hotel wireless. That worked quite well. However hotels and resorts would do well to look into the situation.