Industry insight: Is this the end of WiFi in hotels?

Girl playing with mobile phone on hotel bed
730 565 Hamish Kilburn
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Industry insight: Is this the end of WiFi in hotels?

A recent Which? survey found that over 14GB of data on average is going unused each month. Could your hotel be missing the opportunity to utilise this data network rather than invest in new WiFi Equipment? Following an impressive pitch at Hotel Designs LIVE, Gary Yeames-Smith, Director of Yeames Hospitality believes so…

Girl playing with mobile phone on hotel bed

The race to bring faster and bigger WiFi to Hotels has been ongoing for the last 20 years as more and more devices come online through business use as well as everyday lives. What started as a need for business laptops, was quickly followed by mobile phones, tablets and now smart watches from both business and leisure Guests.

Hoteliers have been charged with installing the infrastructure to support WiFi at the beginning and continue to do so. Why? Because they had to. Given the choice between a Hotel with or without WiFi the Guest would always opt for the former even if it cost more to stay per night. Since then every hotel now offers WiFi and the Guest pays for that though higher room rates.

But this was the need 10 years ago, when internet demand was exploding and the only way to provide it was through a wired or wireless connection because mobile data was slow and patchy at best but also very expensive to the end user. 

Fast forward to 2021 when 4G coverage is mainstream and 5G is being rolled out already to major cities. The cost of mobile data is at an all time low, yet a lot of the data also goes unused. With more speed and capacity available on mobiles that though conventional Broadband networks, isn’t it time your hotel thought of a different way?

Yeames Hospitality provides a Ofcom-regulated Mobile Coverage Solution that will increase signals on all four UK networks throughout the hotel and provide you the opportunity to give your guests amazing mobile coverage but also cut the cord on high cost leased lines in the future.  

business, people, technology, media and team work concept - close up of creative team with smartphones and tablet pc computers sitting at table in office

Image credit: Adobe Stock/Yeames Hospitality

The company, which offers a number of tech-driven solutions, can work with your hotel for fast and effective deployment on build or part of your refurbishment plans.

Yeames Hospitality was a Product Watch Pitch partner at Hotel Designs LIVE, which took place on February 23, 2021. Read more about the virtual event here. The next Hotel Designs LIVE will take place on May 11 2021.

Main image credit: Unsplash

Hamish Kilburn / 14.04.2021

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