Laptop Luggers To See Higher High-Speed Access

<B> Laptop Luggers To See Higher High-Speed Access</B>

By David Jonas

Even on the eve of the new millennium, business travelers still cannot check in to any hotel room and expect to find high-speed Internet access. However, the major chains are testing new systems in hotels around the country and slowly providing laptop-toting road warriors with the connectivity they need.

"There is a lot of interest in this area, but penetration into the industry has been relatively low," acknowledged Robert Bennett, director of technology services for PricewaterhouseCoopers hospitality and leisure practice. "As a result, hotels are running pilots of three or four different technologies to see which one provides the greatest value."

Hotels that do have high-speed access are using it as a selling point to draw corporate customers. Beating many competitors to the punch, Wingate Inns is within reach of equipping all its rooms with high-speed access. Every room in the 62-property portfolio will be connected with T-1 lines by June, as will each new property that comes online.

Most of the other major U.S. hotel chains have not come close to systemwide implementation--and many hospitality industry insiders said that's because business travelers simply are not demanding it.

"Our travelers haven't been asking about the availability of high-speed access. They just want to know if there are dataports," agreed Caro Cook, senior transportation officer at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. She also noted that faster connections would certainly be an advantage for travelers carrying laptops, "as long as hotels don't charge excessive telephone connection costs."

Hilton Hotels, for one, will charge guests an additional $10 per night for a room equipped with OverVoice, a system developed by CAIS Internet of Washington, D.C., that enables simultaneous high-speed Internet access and telephone conversations on the same line.

OverVoice, with data transfer speeds reaching 10 Mbps, will first arrive in major Hilton convention hotels in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Washington, and then in the remainder of the U.S. portfolio, by year-end. Each hotel will offer the system in about 50 percent of its room inventory.

Hilton also has been developing cordless Internet connections for guests and meeting attendees, Ethernet connections on business floors of certain properties and Comcierge, a new in-room system integrating the Internet, business applications, the hotel directory and other information services (<I>BTN,</I> Oct. 5, 1998).

With only two chains moving forward with widespread rollouts, it is too early to determine pricing standards for high-speed connections. "Wingate won't charge and Hilton will, but neither will set the rule," Bennett said. "It will take a while to see where this all settles down." He also noted that certain technologies require hotels to rewire their buildings, upgrade infrastructure and spend a lot of money in the process. Those costs likely will be passed on to the consumer.

It also is unclear if hotels and buyers will try to use high-speed access as a bargaining chip during negotiations, mainly because travelers neither expect nor ask for it. At least not yet.

"I never get a complaint from a traveler saying, 'I like that hotel but they don't have high-speed access,' " noted Denine Rodney, travel manager for Atlantic Records in New York. "And no hotel reps have come in and pitched it."

However, Tom Caldwell, vice president of marketing and business development at Atcom/Info, a San Diego-based provider of Internet solutions to the hospitality industry, noted that many Silicon Valley properties, including the Hyatt San Jose Airport, are "winning corporate contracts" with large technology companies because they actively promote advanced technology, including high-speed connections.

Once a hotel has decided to go forward with high-speed connectivity, it must choose which user interface to implement. About 40 properties have selected Iport from Atcom/Info.

Iport enables "plug and play" functionality, typically to T-1 lines. Laptop users simply plug their Ethernet cards into the wall jack and launch their resident browsers. At that point, users are prompted to accept Internet access charges, ranging from free access to $13 a day, which are integrated with the property's management system and automatically added to the room bill.

Caldwell said that once the billing mechanism is in place, the possibilities are endless. "We can start selling premium content, such as in-room golf lessons or even access to a Grateful Dead music library through the Internet to travelers," he said.

Atcom/Info is discussing systemwide rollouts of the Iport product with a number of chains, but many are approaching the concept cautiously.

"There are several factors preventing hotel companies from jumping right in," Caldwell said. "For one, they recognize that very few corporations allow employees to access the corporate network remotely through the Internet."

<CENTER><B>Hotels Test Access</B></CENTER>

Meanwhile, testing of high-speed access on a smaller scale is continuing at many hotel chains, including Marriott, Promus, Radisson and Starwood.

Promus recently began access trials in guestrooms and meeting spaces at the Doubletree Orange County and the Embassy Suites Memphis.

"The expansion of these trials in both brands will focus heavily on business travel markets," said Don Mabry, director of interactive systems at Promus. "We feel the business traveler is in need of higher connection speeds to empower the devices they bring along with them." The company has not yet disclosed what its access pricing policy will be.

Marriott is in the first phase of high-speed trials in seven full-service Marriott and Renaissance properties. The tests will include about 3,000 guestrooms and some meeting space.

Radisson, which already offers high-speed access in a few of its properties, currently is reviewing vendors in preparation for a chainwide rollout. It expects to make a decision soon and complete installations by year-end.

Starwood also has limited trials underway in 15 to 20 properties across several brands. "The technology is there, but multiplying it by the number of hotels and the number of rooms makes it a very expensive undertaking," said Brian Pratt, vice president of interactive marketing. "Once we validate it as an additional guest benefit, it absolutely will be a drawing point for corporate customers."

Meeting spaces in most of the hotel chain's larger convention locations already are linked to the Internet with fast connections, Pratt said.

In fact, high-speed connections are becoming a common amenity in hotel meeting rooms. In the group market, "meeting planners are beginning to expect it as the standard," Bennett said, "but it will be at least a few years before you can walk into any guestroom in any high-end business hotel and find high-speed access."

Indeed, Bennett noted, wireless connectivity could be the next big trend as commercial cellular services proliferate into different areas--and make the need for high-speed connections obsolete before it even gets going.

"People may just start using their PCs to access the Internet via wireless providers and bypass the hotel infrastructure altogether," he said.