Hotel network designers and their clients will soon have an array of resources to help with the deployment of fiber-optic networks within hotels. A new working group of the nonprofit industry association Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG) will assist hoteliers and technology providers in understanding when and how to use fiber to meet the challenges of skyrocketing guest bandwidth demands.
With an abundance of emerging technologies, new applications, and bandwidth demand doubling every year, hotels are challenged to design and implement an infrastructure to meet the needs of guests, staff and visitors. There is a growing concern that traditional network designs will be insufficient or too costly. For many hotels, deploying fiber to the room has become a viable option.
The output from the new group will include educational resources and tools for hoteliers, network consultants and integrators, which can help them to evaluate fiber options versus traditional copper cabling in both new-build and retrofit projects. Planned resources will include best practice documents, design guides, a bandwidth calculator tool and webinars. Many of these items will be available for general use, while some will require HTNG membership.
Hotel companies that declared their intention to support this effort include Fairmont Raffles Hotels International, Firmdale Hotels, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, InterContinental Hotels Group, Mandarin Oriental Hotels Group, Marcus Hotels & Resorts, Marriott International, Maybourne Hotel Group, Omni Hotels, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. and White Lodging.
In addition to these hoteliers, many product and service providers also plan to share their expertise in creating these resources, including AT&T, Cisco Systems, Corning MobileAccess, DCI Design Communications Inc., Engineering Plus, Enseo, Guest-Tek, Life|ware, Lufthansa Systems, Media Communications, Network Technologies, Inc., Quadriga, Ruckus Wireless, SOLiD Technologies, Swisscom, The Conceptual Group, Windstream Hospitality and Zhone Technologies.
For more information about this effort, visit the workgroup’s wiki page: http://wiki.htng.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Fiber_to_the_Room.
Anyone who wishes to participate in this effort should visit the association’s website at:
http://htng.org/join-a-forumworkgroup.
About Hotel Technology Next Generation
The premier technology solutions association in the hospitality industry, HTNG is a self-funded, nonprofit organization with members from hotel and hospitality companies, technology vendors to hospitality, and other industry members including consultants, media and academic experts. HTNG’s members participate in focused workgroups to bring to market open solution sets addressing specific business problems. HTNG fosters the selection and adoption of existing open standards. Where necessary, it also develops new open standards to meet the needs of the global hospitality industry.
Membership in HTNG is open to hotel and hospitality companies, technology vendors to hospitality, consultants, academics, press and others. Currently more than 400 corporate and individual members from across this spectrum, including most of the world’s leading hotel companies and technology vendors, are active HTNG participants. HTNG’s Board of Governors, consisting of 17 top IT leaders from hotel companies around the world, itself has responsibility for about 2.8 million guest rooms. Workgroup proceedings, drafts and specifications are published for all HTNG members as soon as they are created, encouraging rapid and broad adoption. Specifications are released to the public domain as they are ratified by the workgroups. For more information, visit www.htng.org.
