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"It was a nightmare," says public relations coordinator Michelle Goldstein, relating her recent experience trying to find ISDN-equipped hotel rooms across the country for a press tour. Most hotels had no idea what ISDN was, and when they did, the cost was outrageous and how the connection worked varied from hotel to hotel. Finding a wired-up hotel in Los Angeles was a three-day process.
Goldstein's experience is just one example of the dilemma the hotel industry is facing as it equips rooms for the Net age.
The industry, loathe to invest in costly new technology that could be quickly outdated, has thus far offered guests only a smattering of data services.
"The industry is just starting to evolve in their appreciation of the Internet, but there's a long way to come in regards to delivering high speed access," says Bill Cahill, vice president of the Center for Electronic Learning of the American Hotel/Motel Institute. "Its costing them money to not do this, revenue the hotel should be realizing."
The situation is one that has driven both innkeepers and service providers to hunt for solutions - such as Wednesday's launch announcement for IPORT, a new in-room, high-speed data system. The project is just one of several aiming to serve hotel guests.
For many hotels, demand for online connections is a nightmare - the sheer number of guests who log in from their rooms to check email means that hotel telephone trunk lines are jammed.
The Hotel Nikko in Beverly Hills is just such a hotel. The number of Nikko guests who use their phone lines to log in to the Internet is up to 45 percent - compared to 25 percent last year. The hotel recently installed new data lines and is offering to assist customers in finding local connections as a low-cost solution to the problem. But the access isn't high-speed.
Says Massoud Malek, the Nikko's telecom manager, "It is the biggest challenge for the industry, to find a general, easy way for people to use the Net."
At the moment, the tactics hotels are using to answer guests' Net demands are haphazard and costly.
Some hostelries have installed in-room dataports. Others are trying to set up Net TV systems. Some are simply equipping a few rooms with T1 or ISDN lines and computers and then renting them out as "cybersuites" or "executive centers." Still others will bring in an ISDN line at special guest request - a cost that is then passed on to the customer at several thousand dollars a pop.
Rewiring rooms for fast Net access, says Evans Anderson, vice president of CAIS Internet, can cost as much as US$300-$700 room - not to mention the money lost while the rooms are shut for rewiring. And incorporating yet another new interface and system on top of the countless hotel phone systems already in place (telephone, concierge, reservation, for example) is daunting.
The OverVoice technology that CGX Communications' CAIS Internet has contributed to IPORT - a project developed by Microsoft, Atcom/Info Inc. and CGX and cosponsored by 3Com Corp. and Cyntergy Corp. - might eliminate most of the cost and hassle.
The system uses existing copper wires in every hotel room and creates a fully synchronous, 10Mbps Ethernet connection within the hotel. The idea, according to Stan Julien, hospitality industry marketing manager at Microsoft, is that IPORT will be "brain-dead simple" - guests will simply plug their laptop into the room's Ethernet port, double click, and be on the Net in seconds. The cost to the user: $10 a night.
The system - to be tested in 10 hotels and rolled out officially in about six months - can be installed in hotels for about half the cost of putting in new wiring.
IPORT won't have the market to itself, especially with broadband service providers also turning their attention to hotel needs.
@Home, in conjunction with 4th Network, premiered broadband network access service in the lobbies of several hotels in December, with more due later this year. MediaOne has made similar rumblings.
Another IPORT competitor: On Command, which is exploring several systems. Last year, the firm tested a WebTV service in two Marriott and Hilton hotels, but found there were technical limitations with WebTV. This month, the company is launching another Net TV system, based on Windows NT, in seven hotels. An additional system will roll out for testing later this month that gives laptop travelers high-speed connectivity via coaxial cable.
"There are three different ways to skin the cat to get Net in hotel rooms. One is putting a whole computer in the room, which would cost at least two to three thousand dollars for each room," says On Command spokesperson Eric Becker. "Option B is the TV-based solution, which we're doing with a wireless keyboard and high-speed connection. Option C is to address people who want the Net at high speed but also want to get their own files and company email," such as the laptop solution which On Command will release this month.
The future hotel room, many say, will incorporate all these services - WebTV, high-speed ports, perhaps even videoconferencing. The question, of course, is just which set-top box, which cable access system, which wiring solution will work. And until that's sorted out, says Cahill, the hotel industry is likely to sit tight.
"There's a wait-and-see attitude, a lot of firms waiting for maturity for the solutions," points out Cahill. "But it's a domino industry - nobody wants to give a competitor an advantage. As soon as one firm makes sweeping move, they'll all follow."
