Succeeding in the hospitality industry starts with attracting guests to your property and ensuring each of them has a memorable time during their stay. That, of course, starts with having nice, comfortable accommodations in desirable locations.
Beyond that, one way to make your property stand out is by modernizing your hotel communications infrastructure by investing in new hotel technology supported by a converged network to make your guests feel right at home.
What Is a Converged Network?
In the past, hotels and other hospitality properties generally managed their voice, video, and data networks separately.
These inefficient designs might have worked well enough a decade or so ago. But in the age of mobile devices and mobile professionals, every guest that passes through your doors is likely to have more than one device they’d like to connect to your network and use like they would at home or work.
Without the right kind of network in place, ensuring optimal user experiences for all of your guests on a regular basis can get a bit tricky. After all, multiple networks means multiple vendors managing them—and they may not be planning for the big picture in its entirety.
This is why converged networks are becoming increasingly popular. Quite simply, a converged network is a single network provider that is capable of managing your voice, video, and data needs. By merging three networks into one, hospitality properties can enjoy a number of benefits.
Benefits of Using a Converged Network in Hospitality
Why, specifically, should your hotel consider moving to a converged network?
You Only Have to Deal with One Vendor
Instead of managing multiple vendor relationships, network convergence gives you the luxury of only having to deal with a single company.
Imagine your network isn’t working properly in a pre-converged world. Which vendor is at fault? Odds are, you’d have to call multiple vendors to figure that out. Who knows how much time your staff would have to spend troubleshooting with each vendor to determine what’s wrong—leaving them with less time to attend to guest needs.
In the converged world, you automatically know which vendor to call if your network isn’t working as it should, which saves time and, by extension, money. This enables your staff to spend more time focusing on what matters most: ensuring optimal stays.
One vendor also means one bill—not several. That’ll save some time, too, which will add up over the months and years.
You’ll Reduce Your Total Cost of Ownership
Dealing with a single vendor also means standardized implementation, which helps reduce costs by up to 20 percent. As an added bonus, you don’t have to wait on several different technicians to set your network up—one tech will suffice.
What’s more, a converged network can be managed by a single systems integrator. In the event of a failure, one person will be able to diagnose the problem and fix it quickly. You won’t have to worry about guests being unable to book rooms for an extended period of time as you figure out which of several vendors is responsible for downtime. Finally, since a converged network means that you don’t have to manage multiple sets of equipment, network efficiency increases while support costs decrease.
Add it all up, and network convergence reduces your total cost of ownership (TCO) significantly.
You’ll See Performance Improvements
Years ago, hotels had significantly fewer connectivity demands from guests. Today, that’s no longer the case. In the age of 4G (soon to be 5G) networks and Wi-Fi, guests have grown to expect their devices to work as fast as they’re accustomed to them working at home.
Thanks to network convergence, it’s possible for hoteliers to replicate the in-home connectivity experience. When the distribution layer is removed from network architecture, performance improves and guests enjoy less latency and more speed—a truly streamlined experience.
Your Property Can Remain Flexible and Scalable
If you hope to grow your property by offering new services in the future, a converged network provides the backbone needed to add new devices and apps to your network without worrying about downtime. Traditional networks simply cannot provide this kind of turnkey scalability.
By moving to a converged network, you essentially future-proof your network because you’re able to add new solutions without compromising performance or security.
As a result, you can keep your offerings consistently up to date, thereby differentiating yourself from your competitors and helping ensure positive guest experiences every stay.
