Do you WANT to know? Yes, you do.

HALF.

Half of the hotels we support went down in the last 7 days. They were all brief outages, most during the day, some didn't even generate guest calls. But SIX different ISPs created or allowed problems that killed Internet connections for 50% of the hotels we monitor and support.

It was an odd week, to be sure - that many ISP failures isn't the norm. On average, every property sees half a dozen brief outages in a year. You may think that your ISP is better - but that probably means that you're not getting reports when it happens and you're HSIA provider isn't watching and alerting you.

So should we? Should we watch all those connections all day long and take the time and trouble to call the Front Desk to say 'There's a problem, we contacted the ISP, we'll let you know as soon as it's up'?

I think so. We could be lazy and only call when something's down for more than an hour, or if it's after 5:00pm. Actually, more than a third of our properties have load balancers - they never go down completely unless they lose power. But we still tell them what's going on. Why?

Because you're there and we're not.

We're the geeks, the guys who know all the little things about the network, the one who take the guest calls - both simple and complex. But the Front Desk staff is there at the property 24 x 7, interacting with EVERY guest. The more we can do the keep them informed (and equipped to provide the best possible service to guests), the happier the guests will be.

It's only been a few years since guests started expecting Internet service at every brand - it will only be a few more before they expect every property to be able to answer:
- How fast is the connection?
- Is Bit Torrent blocked?
- Can I connect my Xbox?
- How many users can you handle in the meeting room?

We're happy to answer the questions on the phone, but the guests will be even happier when they know they can get answers as they check in.

More information - that's where we're all headed.