If we were *only* in the business of answering guest calls to help them get on the Internet, we would worry more about metrics like 'call length' and 'time to resolution'. But we're not. We know what's important to our clients - keeping their guests happy and turning as many as possible into regulars.

We spent nearly an hour today to help a guest who checked into one of our client properties for a month with an Xbox and no laptop. To a non-gamer, that probably sounds odd - but it's not uncommon.

His Xbox wasn't getting an address from the network, even when a laptop did on the same wired jack (in two different guest rooms no less). Clearly a problem with the Xbox, and nobody's going to say the problem kept him from getting work done (not even the guest). But it's important to him and we took as long as necessary to work through the problem so he can do on-line gaming.

Not only is he at the property for a month, but having had a problem with an Xbox at a hotel and knowing that he found a property that accommodated him - where's he going to stay next time? I have no doubt where he'll book next time.

You can't keep your guests from misbehaving (and for the most part you don't care to), but if a guest illegally downloads copyrighted material you could find yourself with no Internet access - and still paying the bill.

Simple firewalls and other methods like using a filtered DNS service won't fix the biggest copyright problem - Peer to Peer networks. Anyone can find and download copyrighted music and movies and many people now do from places other than their homes so that they aren't held responsible, fined or jailed.

Unfortunately, your hotel is that 'other place'.

Your Internet service provider can terminate your Internet service with no notice and may even continue to bill you. You can prevent guests from using Peer to Peer networks like Bit Torrent with a firewall that can stop Peer to Peer traffic. There aren't many of them, but our guests have been well served by Checkpoint's line of small office firewalls. For as little as $199, it's effective protection.

Yes, once in a while a guest will complain that he can't do something that it 'absolutely vital for his job', but the truth is 99% of all traffic on Bit Torrent is for copyrighted material, as reported just this morning:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/01/student_torrent_survey/

Need help understanding and addressing the problem? Give us a call.

Having lived through a year+ decline in occupancy, not everything looks bright and sunny on the revenue front for hotels. But it's important to remember just how long the hospitality business has been around.

There's a great Flickr group for vintage Hotel and Motel signs http://www.flickr.com/groups/motelhotelsigns if you'd like a bit of nostalgia. Having spent time in the motel my grandparents ran at Lake Tahoe, some of these (all Tahoe) bring back instant memories.

Sarah Lacy of TechCrunch posted an article entitled 'Hotel WiFi Should be a Right Not a Luxury' on New Year's Day. Within 48 hours there were hundreds of comments, including my own.

This is something that is critical to your guests - both business and leisure travelers. It's worth paying more attention to your Internet service because it's clearly a factor in selecting a hotel

Every General Manager should know not only the speed and capacity of their network, but also the number of guests using the network each month and how that has changed in the last 12 months.

If your guests know more about the quality of your service than you do, you may be in trouble.

Twitter has had so many problems with accounts getting hijacked that they have now banned 370 common passwords that were way to easy to guess. See the complete list at Business Insider http://ow.ly/QvZd.

If you see your own password, today is a good time to change it. No, no - not tomorrow. Today.

This is a story from the UK and US laws are different, but a hotel that does not protect itself should not assume there is no legal liability.

Having a clear 'Terms and Conditions' or 'Usage Agreement' page requires some type of Public Access Controller (we strongly prefer HP's), but requiring a positive acknowledgement ('I Agree' button) and recording that acknowledgement are the only way to confirm that the guest user was informed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/nov/27/pub-file-sharing-cloud-fine

We have a customer site that's been off the Internet for two days through no fault of their own. It may be another three days before it gets fixed - and they are completely booked.

Here's how you can avoid the risk of room credits and lost business for less than $50/month.

http://rev31k.com/letting-someone-shoot-you-in-the-head

Even with occupancy down, demand for bandwidth continues to increase.

The growth comes from several sources:

• Use of new applications like streaming video
• More leisure travelers with laptops
• Guests with multiple wireless devices - like iPhones, XBoxes and even 2nd laptops
  

Years ago you could could expect to service up to 16 rooms with one wireless access point and keep everyone happy with one T1 - not anymore. Today you really can't keep guests happy with more than 8 to 12 rooms per access point, and a T1 will only satisfy 8 guests at a time.

We have properties with more computers than rooms - where the guests regularly consume the equivalent of 5 T1s per 100 rooms. But keeping up with that kind of demand doesn't have to cost a lot.

By using a load-balancing firewall and carefully selecting the right Internet carriers, you can get 3 to 4 times the performance of a T1 for half the cost. We've done exactly this for several properties in the last two years and they have all gained the benefit of redundancy - if one Internet connection goes down, they have a second to keep them running.

Don't forget - that same benefit applies to the Front Desk and offices as well!