HTU 7
Hotelier Technology Update Network Performance Network performance is not just a matter of how much bandwidth is available. There are many factors that affect performance within the property, specifically wiring in the walls, the use of consumer grade equipment to deliver HSIA, and the age of the equipment currently installed. iBAHN has extensive experience in addressing these limitations and can help hoteliers upgrade or work around these issues. Key solutions include iBAHN NextConnectSM and iBAHN Speed SolutionTM, with additional services on the horizon.
What is network performance, anyway? Hoteliers are very interested in the performance of their guest HSIA networks, and use tools such as network performance reports to monitor network capacity and throughput. When it comes down to it, however, network performance is often a matter of guest perception of speed and ease-ofuse, rather than the actual bandwidth provided. Response time can be defined as the time from when a guest hits the button on their computer until they see the result on the screen. Once the data is sent, it travels through the network to an aggregation point, gets routed onto the Internet, passes through various security measures, gets accepted by the host system, and then gets sent back to the guest’s computer. In most cases, this occurs in milliseconds. Speed and bandwidth are not the same. Speed is how fast the response comes to the request. Bandwidth is how much capacity and volume is available, and is subject to congestion. If you compare speed and bandwidth to travelling on a 2 lane road, when it is empty, you can go as fast as you want. When there are many cars on the road, you can only go at the speed of the other traffic. If you increase the bandwidth or lanes to a 6 lane road, you can greatly increase the number of cars and the speeds they can go.
Where are the bottlenecks inside a hotel using wired HSIA? There are three components that affect performance for the end customer: • The type of wiring that is inside the walls of the hotel • Consumer-grade equipment installed to handle an enterprise-grade issue • Equipment age and obsolescence
Wiring Hotel wiring for Internet is a fairly new requirement and in many cases, hotels were built before additional phone lines were considered a necessity, or before Ethernet cabling was available. Many hotels have had to add wiring during remodels, with the consequences of accommodating existing walls, electrical circuits, etc. Current standards are for Category 6 (CAT6), a term that defines the construction of the wire and how many twisted pairs that are in the cable. Until very recently, most hotels were wired with Category 3 (CAT3) wiring. Although to the untrained eye they look the same, the difference between CAT3 and CAT6 could be over a thousand times greater capacity. CAT3 is not suitable in speed and capacity to run HSIA without specialised equipment attached to it in the guest room. Category 5 (CAT5) cabling supports Ethernet speeds without additional equipment in the guest rooms. There are limited technologies available to enable broadband use over CAT3. The two most common technologies are (1) hPNA (Home Phoneline Networking Alliance), and (2) LRE (Long Reach Ethernet). HomePNA 1.0 technology was originally developed by Tut Systems. LRE was developed by Cisco. In 2006 Cisco stopped selling LRE due to its limited bandwidth. Early implementations of hPNA could only reach speeds of 1 – 10 Mbps. The latest hPNA release reaches speeds up to 320Mbps. Several companies continue to improve hPNA equipment. Recent versions of this gear have provided a very viable, more cost-effective option for improving hotel HSIA speeds than ripping apart the walls and replacing the cabling. iBAHN currently sells and supports Tut mT2 equipment (now a Motorola company), with speeds of 70Mbps over CAT3. iBAHN worked closely with Tut to engineer, integrate, and certify the equipment on our network, and markets it under the iBAHN NextConnectSM service name.
Consumer grade equipment During the growth in demand for HSIA capabilities, many hotels purchased and installed consumer grade equipment in their hotels to satisfy the guest’s needs. Certainly consumer grade equipment functions well and is cost-effective, and for an hotelier with only a few guests who use the Internet, this may be a successful approach. The challenge is that the lower cost consumer equipment is not designed to handle large numbers of concurrent users. As HSIA system usage grows, enterprise grade equipment becomes extremely important to ensure the reliability of a hotel’s HSIA system. BOTTOM LINE — consumer grade equipment can achieve the advertised port speed and transfer rate for one or even a few computers at a time: enterprise grade equipment enables all computers in concurrent use to reach those rates at the same time. Capabilities or features such as backplane speed, switch fabric, and system management are among the criteria that must be evaluated when choosing equipment to manage a hotel’s HSIA network needs. It is also necessary that a device on the network can be managed to the port level. This capability enables an operator to completely support an individual guest’s network access, as well as better manage overall bandwidth utilisation and system security. BOTTOM LINE — these capabilities are only available on enterprise grade equipment.
Equipment age and obsolescence Outdated equipment with reduced throughput is a third important area that should be reviewed with today’s high demand for bandwidth performance. Many networks were installed years ago with equipment that was sufficient at the time. Multi-user networks perform only as well as the slowest point (the choke point). Wiring, switches, and routers should be evaluated to determine if they can handle today’s high bandwidth connections. If they cannot, they must be replaced with equipment that can.
What does this mean to the hotelier? Most people think that the only factor is bandwidth when it comes to performance, when, in fact, it is only one component of an entire system. Many of the technologies mentioned are common bottlenecks that are often overlooked. When additional bandwidth is added and no improvement is seen, it is generally due to obsolete equipment, insufficient wiring or a poor system configuration.
How does iBAHN help? iBAHN has extensive experience overcoming the challenges of substandard or obsolete cabling and equipment. Solutions like iBAHN NextConnectSM are among the options available to hoteliers to improve the quality HSIA services. Another tool is the implementation of bandwidth management solutions or bandwidth. iBAHN also offers iBAHN Speed SolutionTM as the only dynamic bandwidth management solution on the market. BOTTOM LINE — iBAHN has the equipment and the expertise to fine tune a hotel’s HSIA system, enabling the highest possible data transfer speed and bandwidth utilisation for a true high speed Internet access system.
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