Overview
For hotels looking to upgrade their connectivity, rewiring can be an invasive and expensive option. Hotels with existing coaxial cabling or telephone wiring can make use of their current situation by utilizing a solution like Positron Access Systems’ G.hn Access Multiplexer (GAM), leveraging the ITU-T G.hn standard for Gigabit Ethernet over existing wiring and indoor Wi-Fi solutions from Cambium Networks to dazzle their guests.
Challenge: Upgrade Wi-Fi in an Existing Hotel Efficiently
ONE OF THE KEY AMENITIES in hotels and resorts is reliable, high-speed Wi-Fi access. The Grand Rapids and Warren, Michigan hotel locations needed to improve their existing DOCSIS-based offering. Many guests were experiencing unstable connectivity in their rooms. Affordable Suites contacted World Cinema Inc. (WCI) to develop a solution to provide faster Wi-Fi access throughout the property and more stable Gigabit Ethernet over the existing coaxial infrastructure. In addition, the solution needed to support seamless roaming for guests and client isolation to ensure secure access.
Solution – Sophisticated Access Made Simple
AFFORDABLE SUITES WANTED TO MAXIMIZE performance while leveraging their existing coaxial cable infrastructure. They contacted World Cinema, Inc. to develop a solution for faster Wi-Fi access throughout the property. In addition, they needed to support seamless roaming for guests and client isolation to ensure secure access. “WCI has specific experience in designing and installing solutions in both new construction and existing venues,” says Kyle Beauchamp, Vice President, ImpruviX Division of World Cinema. “Our network design and field technicians know the real-world performance that products deliver. We work closely with manufacturers and can optimize networks to deliver the the best performance. We chose the G.hn Access Multiplexer (GAM) from Positron to leverage the existing coaxial cabling and indoor Wi-Fi APs from Cambium Networks.”
Cambium Networks indoor access points and cnMaestro cloud management enable the solution.
Results
To facilitate faster Wi-Fi, the broadband link to the guest room must deliver adequate capacity. That is where the Positron GAM fits in. With its unique ability to deliver up to 1.7 Gpbs aggregate bandwidth (upstream plus downstream) to each subscriber with low latency over the existing coax (or telephone pairs), the GAM is the ideal Gigabit Ethernet Backbone for the Cambium APs. In these projects, each GAM G.hn coax port served up 32 guest rooms. This was done using a 1:16 split on a GAM port and then serving every two rooms with a GAM Endpoint device connected to a AP. In such a configuration, the 1.7 Gbps of maximum available bandwidth on each GAM port is used to serve 32 guest rooms.