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.

Hospitable Geeks

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.

Your ISP holds you legally responsible for your guests' copyright violations

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.