Case Study: Smart Wi-Fi: Pullman King Power Hotel The Pullman King Power Hotel is a stylish 386 room 4 star Accor property in Bangkok that caters to both the business and tourist traveller. It wanted to impr ove its property wide Wi-Fi network to gain a competitive advantage, as research shows a sharp increase in guests showing up with multiple Wi-Fi devices which placed severe demands on their wireless network.

For one thing, more devices have created a capacity issue. More than 90% of hotel visitors now arrive with at least two Wi-Fi devices usually a laptop/netbook and a smart phone. But the trend is guests are now arriving at hotels with even more Wi-Fi devices including a laptop or netbook, smartphones, tablets, music players, e-readers and even gaming devices. The number of devices connecting to a Wi-Fi access point has skyrocketed, creating capacity demands on the hotel's Wi-Fi network. And each of these devices are more demanding on the network's capacity because their appetite for bandwidth has increased considerably as guests stream video, music, photos and voice.

Capacity isn't the only challenge facing today's hotel wireless networks. Connectivity is increasingly an issue as well. That's because these new handheld Wi-Fi devices are significantly less powerful than the Wi-Fi built into your standard laptop computer. Smart phones just don't have the same capability to connect to the Wi-Fi network as laptops, but try explaining that to your guests.

The Pullman King Power Hotel doesn't have to. That's because they've turned to Thai-Fi to install a new building wide Wi-Fi 802.11n Wi-Fi network from Ruckus that's the smartest, fastest, most capable system available. Not just in Thailand, but anywhere

Smarter? You bet. It's a managed system which means it has a brain. It decides which Wi-Fi access point (we'll call them "AP's for simplicity) you'll connect to based on strength of signal and capacity demands on nearby AP's. And what happens when your guest starts walking down the hall? Normally, you'd get disconnected but the Ruckus managed system will "hand off" to the next nearest access point, so you don't get disconnected. That makes VOIP calls possible if you design the network with enough coverage to ensure constant connectivity. What if the AP you are connected to experiences a problem? The system simply shifts you to another one, creating a self healing network. Smart.

What about our claim that it's faster? That's not exaggeration it's 802.11n, which is the latest evolution in the Wi-Fi technology family. The "n" standard of Wi-Fi succeeds the earlier "g" and original "b" versions of Wi-Fi technology and the newest "n" standard is blindingly fast 300Mpbs worth of capacity. That's going to help as your guests use more capacity to stream entertainment, upload photos and send content rich business presentations. Better yet, it's going to "future proof" the Pullman as guests start bringing their own content to the hotel an emerging trend. No need to worry if all your guests don't have the latest Wi-Fi standard on their laptops or smart phones because the "n" standard is backward compatible with the two older versions of Wi-Fi.

Finally, the Ruckus gear we installed at the Pullman is more capable for a couple of reasons. The first is the patented Ruckus "beamforming" antenna technology. Essentially, it points its signal at your device and the network's brain is constantly recalculating the best path to your device multiple times per second. The result is significantly better connectivity to weaker handheld Wi-Fi devices and this really separates the Ruckus Wi-Fi gear from the rest of the pack. Plus, it recognizes what kind of activity you are doing and will prioritize network traffic accordingly. That means, if you are using the Wi-Fi network to make a Skype phone call, it will give those voice data packets priority over someone downloading emails, so your voice call remains stable.

Hotel guests really don't care about the new technical challenges they are creating for hotels. But they care when they can't use their smart phone to make a Skype call from their room, or upload a photo to Facebook by the pool. A recent survey has shown that 77% of hotel visitors consider their Wi-Fi experience at the hotel a key consideration in evaluating their hotel stay and deciding to return or recommend others to stay there. The Pullman has called on Thai-Fi to meet this challenge and we've delivered. Smarter, faster, and well OK, let's be honest it's not cheaper than your average household Wi-Fi access point. But the question isn't simply how much it costs. The question is how much and how fast can you realize a return on that investment. The Pullman is using its Wi-Fi network to increase customer satisfaction and fill rooms. That's a good return on investment.

 Sky-Fi: SME Broadband Solution: American Chamber of Commerce of Thailand ("Amcham")
Amcham is an 11 person office--a typical sized SME. And they had a typical SME problem: the need for business class broadband on a limited budget. Amcham needed an upgrade from a residential class internet connection to an SME broadband package because despite the speed claims of the consumer class service, performance did not meet their needs. They had to move up in quality and price to a business class broadband service and first considered the traditional copper broadband technology commonly known as ADSL. The business class ADSL options were not much more compelling than their residential class ADSL service, as they were not convinced it would be much of an improvement.

Enter Sky-Fi, Thai-Fi's new rooftop mounted wireless broadband service for business. Thai-Fi already provides extremely high quality fiber based broadband to many 4/5 star hotels in Bangkok. We control our own fiber network throughout Bangkok which connects each of our hotel broadband customers with a sizeable 100Mbps sized "pipe". And, as a licensed ISP, we buy our own international bandwidth to control the "contention ration" which is the amount of people who share that bandwidth. Plus we have a 24x7 multi-lingual call center to support our hotel broadband customers. So putting up wireless transmitters on our rooftops was a natural extension of our existing hotel broadband business. We call this service "Sky-Fi".

Amcham was one of the first beneficiaries of our new Sky-Fi service because their office was well within range of our first hotel rooftop wireless broadband transmitter. Installation at their office was easy. A small, wireless receiver was simply suction cupped to a window and plugged into a power outlet. Our wiring team then ran a LAN cable to their router and they were up and running.

Our Sky-Fi SME package was less cost than older copper based business class ADSL alternatives because we don't have to pay a third party a monthly fee for a copper wire connection to deliver broadband to Amcham--instead we own the equipment which delivers a wireless broadband connection to the Amcham office.

And our bandwidth is far better for a number of reasons. First, the wireless connection creates a huge "pipe", similar to a fiber connection. This means we can "burst" because there's so much additional capacity available to deliver broadband to their office. "Bursting" means we automatically shift additional bandwidth exceeding Amcham's 2Mbps service for very short periods when our other customers are not using their bandwidth, just like we do with our more expensive fiber broadband service. You don't get bursting with a copper ADSL line.

And, unlike older copper broadband technology at this price point, our wirelesss bandwidth is symmetrical. That means you get the same speed on uploads as you do on downloads. The older copper based SME service at the SME price point is asymmetrical, meaning slower uploads than downloads (which is why it's called Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line or ADSL.

We started Amcham off with 2Mbp. That may not sound like a lot but we strictly control the number of parties sharing that bandwidth with Amcham. That's called the "contention ratio" and Amcham shares its bandwidth with far less people than the typical ISP at this price point. And we tell people what our contention ratio is: it's 6:1 (six customers per one megabit of international bandwidth), which is exceptionally good in at that price point here in Thailand.

And what is that price point? Prices will continue to decrease as time passes, but at the time we started service in January of 2011, 12,000 baht per month was the cost of a typical decent quality SME business class service for 2 Mbps. We've priced our service at 7,000 baht per month for far better bandwidth. Don't confuse this with residential class service which promises excessive bandwidth for a lot less money, because that sharing (or "contention ratio") will be several hundred to one instead of our six to one. That's why it's unstable and slows during peak usage hours and is unsuitable for business.

Sky-Fi met all the criteria we strive for: better; faster, cheaper. And we want you to know how we managed to do it.