Bed, Bath & Broadband

Right Place, Right Time

2010-03-29T06:24:00.000-07:00

Some things are perfectly acceptable under certain circumstances and shockingly bad under other circumstances.

BT (British Telecomm) is under fire for using browser re-direct (the same process you see in the hotel to send guests to a welcome/login page) to sell customers new services. The difference is that for an individual user in a hotel this is an interruption of a few seconds and it's necessary for the hotelier's legal protection. For businesses in the UK, it's neither expected nor minor.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/29/bt_hijack/

Indie Hotspots Could Perish in UK for Piracy Law

2010-03-01T12:51:00.000-08:00

reported by Glenn Fleishman at wifinetnews.com Feb. 28
http://ow.ly/1cWb7

Indie Hotspots Could Perish in UK for Piracy Law
"A UK law under consideration and much reviled by privacy advocates would make independent Wi-Fi hotspots legally indefensible."

That includes hotels, cafes and anyone else who does not (want to) charge enough to operate the required systems to authenticate users and block those who are suspected of wrongdoing. Sounds like a great way for the cell carriers to promote their paid services above all alternatives - I hope we don't see the same direction in the U.S.

Do you WANT to know? Yes, you do.

2010-02-21T21:57:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-03T20:15:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-01T11:02:00.000-08:00

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.

Hospitality is part of the fabric of society

2010-01-10T15:28:00.000-08:00

Having lived through a year+ decline in occupancy, not everything looks bright and sunny on the revenue front for hotels. But it's important to remember just how long the hospitality business has been around.

There's a great Flickr group for vintage Hotel and Motel signs http://www.flickr.com/groups/motelhotelsigns if you'd like a bit of nostalgia. Having spent time in the motel my grandparents ran at Lake Tahoe, some of these (all Tahoe) bring back instant memories.

Your guests think about your service more than you do.

2010-01-03T19:39:00.000-08:00

Sarah Lacy of TechCrunch posted an article entitled 'Hotel WiFi Should be a Right Not a Luxury' on New Year's Day. Within 48 hours there were hundreds of comments, including my own.

This is something that is critical to your guests - both business and leisure travelers. It's worth paying more attention to your Internet service because it's clearly a factor in selecting a hotel

Every General Manager should know not only the speed and capacity of their network, but also the number of guests using the network each month and how that has changed in the last 12 months.

If your guests know more about the quality of your service than you do, you may be in trouble.

You're not as anonymous as you think, and your password is way too easy to guess

2009-12-28T12:34:00.000-08:00

Twitter has had so many problems with accounts getting hijacked that they have now banned 370 common passwords that were way to easy to guess. See the complete list at Business Insider http://ow.ly/QvZd.

If you see your own password, today is a good time to change it. No, no - not tomorrow. Today.

Pub fined $14,000 for Customer's Illegal Download

2009-11-30T09:59:00.000-08:00

This is a story from the UK and US laws are different, but a hotel that does not protect itself should not assume there is no legal liability.

Having a clear 'Terms and Conditions' or 'Usage Agreement' page requires some type of Public Access Controller (we strongly prefer HP's), but requiring a positive acknowledgement ('I Agree' button) and recording that acknowledgement are the only way to confirm that the guest user was informed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/nov/27/pub-file-sharing-cloud-fine

A risk that's hard to recognize but easy to prevent

2009-11-13T09:57:00.000-08:00

We have a customer site that's been off the Internet for two days through no fault of their own. It may be another three days before it gets fixed - and they are completely booked.

Here's how you can avoid the risk of room credits and lost business for less than $50/month.

http://rev31k.com/letting-someone-shoot-you-in-the-head

More, more, more!

2009-10-16T11:41:00.000-07:00

Even with occupancy down, demand for bandwidth continues to increase.

The growth comes from several sources:

Use of new applications like streaming video
More leisure travelers with laptops
Guests with multiple wireless devices - like iPhones, XBoxes and even 2nd laptops

Years ago you could could expect to service up to 16 rooms with one wireless access point and keep everyone happy with one T1 - not anymore. Today you really can't keep guests happy with more than 8 to 12 rooms per access point, and a T1 will only satisfy 8 guests at a time.

We have properties with more computers than rooms - where the guests regularly consume the equivalent of 5 T1s per 100 rooms. But keeping up with that kind of demand doesn't have to cost a lot.

By using a load-balancing firewall and carefully selecting the right Internet carriers, you can get 3 to 4 times the performance of a T1 for half the cost. We've done exactly this for several properties in the last two years and they have all gained the benefit of redundancy - if one Internet connection goes down, they have a second to keep them running.

Don't forget - that same benefit applies to the Front Desk and offices as well!

WiFi is just a fad, no?

2009-08-02T23:57:00.000-07:00

Survey: Airport Wi-Fi More Important Than Food http://bit.ly/wYmkb (RT @TechmemeFH)

Just when you thought it was old - Wireless Internet use up 133% in the last 19 months, kinda. http://bit.ly/F3Rdh

There can be only one. To connect a wired device to a wireless network forget Linksys etc. - you want Pepwave's Surf AP http://bit.ly/2HXwCj

short one this week - future posts will move to posterous.

The Operator: July 19, 2009

2009-07-19T18:51:00.000-07:00

Equipment - what we like, why, and how long you should expect it to last

There are planty of companies who want to sell you hardware, software and services - and many of them do an excellent job at a fair price. But that doesn't mean that their objectives are in line with your own.

No one (well, no one I know) is in a hurry to buy more equipment than they need, to pay too much for it, or to have to replace it any sooner than absolutely necessary. So how do you find a solution that fits exactly your needs when there are a hundred models of every widget you can imagine?

It's not a new question, and the age-old answer is to seek the advice of someone who has been dealing with the same problem longer, more successfully or at a larger scale than you.

Now, being geeks, we really like doing that. Every day. And in excrutiating detail. But we also know that we have to live with the equipment that we choose and recommend, not just sell it and walk away. That has made all the difference.

Anything that we recommend or sell we assume that we are going to have to install, maintain and even swap under warranty for no additional service costs. Typically, we get paid the same whether a piece of equipment is flawless or funky. Balance that against the realization that the more we ask someone to spend on stuff, the less they can get done - now you know where we are coming from.

So here are our simplest recommendations - you are under no obligation to concur or comply, but our preferences are based on the thousands of unique users we connect and support every month, and the calls that we take 24 x 7 to keep things humming:

Desktops and Servers: HP - the BUSINESS CLASS models with 3 year warranty (and buy a spare for critical roles!)

Hotel Wireless Gear: HP, hands down (lifetime warranty, SOAP support, half the cost of Cisco and Nomadix for more functionality and better remote support for hotel use), HP bought Colubris last fall.

Network Switches: HP (lifetime warranty), but on occasion we use Netgear for PoE

Backup Services: Mozy Pro (cheap and easy) or VaultLogix (PCIcompliant)

Every one of these recommendations should provide reliable service for 3 to 5 years. You were hoping for 7? Hmmm. We need to talk about risk and business continuity.

The Operator: July 12, 2009

2009-07-12T15:41:00.000-07:00

What should be documented, how and why.

I'll be the first to admit that I tend to put work before paperwork. But when it comes to documenting your network and IT assets, every hour of paperwork can save you several hours of work.

Last week's installation is a great example. We installed a new HP controller, a PoE switch (not HP, though we tried and that's another story) and 12 new HP wireless access points for a client's hotel. That was the easy part. The hard part was salvaging the 9 existing 3Com access points from the old system. No, they didn't need 21 total, they needed 18 for 170 rooms + 5 meeting rooms - but when we surveyed we only found 6 3Com APs.

Because there was no documentation available, it took several hours to find and reconfigure the old units. 7 were in the ceiling of the 2nd floor (no, installs on the 200 level DO NOT provide good coverage for 3 floors!), but 2 were putting out very little signal, making them hard to track down.

The two that were easy to find were in the conference center. One other thing made those two units stand out - they had never been configured. They were removed from the box and placed in the ceiling without being set up. That might work for some equipment, but in this case those units put out NO SIGNAL until they were configured.

Guests had good reason for complaining.

Now they have capacity for 200+ users, no login/password (which they hated and couldn't work around) and a coverage map showing the signal level in every corner of the property. When they need to make another change, they'll have the exact location of all 24 pieces of equipment.

I could go into some great geeky detail about how we save config files (so that we can drop-ship replacements and get things back in operation overnight), but the important part is this:

None of that 'stuff' in the back room is bulletproof - eventually something's going to break. Documentation is the difference between a quick recovery and days of downtime. Having it means that when you need to consider changes you don't have to start from scratch. Not having it means you chose an IT vendor who is either lazy and sloppy or who wants you to be dependent on them in case of failure.

- Matt

The Operator: July 6, 2009

2009-07-05T20:05:00.000-07:00

Sometimes paranoia pays. When we're asked about PMS and front desk hardware, we've given the same advice for a while now, and I've used the same illustration to explain the importance. And a week ago the worst-case scenario that I've described many times came true for one of our clients.

If your PMS server fails on a Friday after 5pm, the soonest you may be able to reach the manufacturer is Monday morning. Most likely, your repair or replacement will take until Wednesday to have in place. That's five days of trying to run your property on paper!

The simplest answer is to ensure that at least ONE of your other workstations uses hardware identical to the server. That generally adds $100-500 to your hardware costs (since the workstation probably needs less power), but it can put you back in operation in less than an hour instead of nearly a week. By moving the hard drive from the server to the identically equipped workstation, you can have your server back. You'll be short a workstation, but that computer wouldn't have been much help without the server.

You do need to take one additional precaution - make sure that you are backing up your data and make sure that your backups are rotated off-site so that a fire or flood cannot render your system unrecoverable. And remember - your backup is only as good as your ability to restore from it, which you can only be sure of by doing a test restore at least once per year. That can be a pain to schedule, but I have yet to see a disaster that was scheduled.

- Matt

More faults than fingers to point

2007-04-24T22:01:00.000-07:00

This was the second night in a row that we received calls about VPNs not connecting - from different hotels where we know we have lots of IPsec traffic. It's one of the hardest applications to test, because you can never test the authentication.

This time around, I knew it was the VPN host (firewall/server/concentrator) because the guest re-tried with a bad password and got a 'bad password' response instead of a timeout.

I think some of our calls logs would make for interesting reading, so we're going to post them (without names or room numbers). At the very least, if we give a guest poor support we'll likely get some 'informative' feedback.

- Matt