Hotels Pilot Tech Team's In-Room Internet Access Tool
<B> Hotels Pilot Tech Team's In-Room Internet Access Tool</B>
By David Marcus
Four technology players are teaming up on an in-room telecommunications tool that is easy to operate and relatively inexpensive to set up.
Iport, an Internet access system developed by San Diego-based Atcom/INfo, Microsoft, 3Com and CGX Communications, makes accessing e-mail or the Internet in a hotel room as easy as plugging in a laptop and clicking on an icon. It allows business travelers to send and receive data securely over the Internet at "speeds that are 50 times faster than traditional dial-up services," said Stan Julien, Microsoft's hospitality industry marketing manager.
The partnership is in its second month of a half-year pilot at selected hotels in San Jose, Seattle and Washington, D.C..
Officials said the new software will cut significantly the cost of doing business on the road and boost employee productivity.
For hotels, Iport is economical in that it requires no new wiring. To hook it up, Atcom/Info simply installs an Iport jack, said Evans Anderson, vice president and general manager of partner CGX Communications. Internally, Atcom/Info technicians install a Microsoft Windows NT-based local area network in the hotel. The LAN is then connected to a local Internet service provider by a high-speed phone line--T1, ISDN or ASDL--bypassing the hotel's PBX.
Sam Johnson, general manager of Seattle's Hotel Vintage Park, which has been testing Iport since the beginning of March, noted that another major advantage of the system is that it moves laptop users off the hotel's telephone system. "Though we're very corporate-oriented, our system is not designed to handle the load of laptops and faxes. Six to eight people at night plugging in ties up our phones," he noted.
Johnson said his hotel site offers Iport connectivity free of charge to laptop and desktop users. All 126 guest rooms have Iport links for laptops, 30 also offer desktop PCs. All rooms are connected via an antenna to an ethernet hub of two servers.
Johnson, whose hotel boasts a business travel mix of more than 75 percent--and includes Nordstrom and Microsoft among its key accounts--said Iport is being marketed to corporations so that IT departments can pre-load the software on company networks and company laptops. He hinted that Microsoft, which has a large presence in the Seattle market, will include Iport requirements in its future hotel RFPs.
For the end user, the system is compatible with Windows 95, 98 and NT platforms, as well as Internet Explorer and Netscape browsers. Guests can connect their equipment to two ports, one near the desk and one near the television for use with future TV-based Internet services. The only equipment required is a portable computer plus an ethernet card.
Other hotels beta testing Iport are the Bellevue Courtyard, Bellevue, Wash.; Hillsboro Candlewood, Hillsboro, Ore.; the Hyatt San Jose Airport, San Jose, Calif.; La Jolla Marriott, La Jolla, Calif.; Marriott SeaTac Airport, Seattle; the Washington Marriott, Washington, D.C.; and the Woodmark Hotel, Kirkland, Wash.