Guest Internet Access (HSIA)

Now is the time to make the investment into a future-proof infrastructure, offering you the flexibility to move additional services onto an IP-based network when you’re ready. Internet access to the guest is only one piece of the puzzle which includes:

• IPTV,
• Video-on-Demand
• Back office functionality
• Roaming check-in
• IP security systems
• Wi-Fi enabled door locking solutions
• Housekeeping technologies.

Global Gossip works to your specific requirements and advises on the best approach to upgrading your network.  Have you considered how the network might be used in the future? We can help not only with guest Internet access but also with designing a network you can use to streamline hotel operations both now and down the track.

Global Gossip can project manage the installation of the network and associated hardware including cabling and ISP relationships. Our goal is to support you through our state-of-the-art network which will not let you down.

• For group bookings or VIP guests you can set lower rates or higher bandwidth limits, all automatically detected by our interface to your Property Management System (PMS). 
• Different group codes can be mapped to different rate plans allowing you to offer ‘Internet specials’ to your regular corporate guests. 
• You can offer higher speeds at higher prices for those guests requiring bandwidth intensive applications such as video conferencing or media streaming. 
• Your hotel can be split into different ‘zones’ each with their own billing capabilities. 

Guests bandwidth limits can be set based on the rate plan applicable to them.  Hotel staff and our support engineers have access through our web-based management system to instantly change this bandwidth limit on-the-fly should they need to do so.  No more problems with guests waiting on hold to be put through to Cisco qualified engineers on the other side of the world who have to dial-in and reconfigure switches or servers.  A simple point-and-click is all that’s required to override bandwidth on a per-guest level for immediate results. 

Our system also comes with SmartShare bandwidth management technology allowing the Internet connection to be dynamically allocated to where it is needed most.  If you have conferences running during the day then more bandwidth will be allocated to the conference networks than the in-room guests (who are generally out of their rooms during the day). Then, in the evening the conference network allocation is reduced and more of the available bandwidth given to guests.  This allows large hotels to offer fast Internet speeds to everyone.  In a multi-site campus situation you can also specify where bandwidth should be made available at what times of the day and what ‘zone’ of the campus takes priority to ensure the most important guests have the best online experience. 

All of our managed network devices use industry standard protocols (SNMP) to talk to our centralised Network Management System (NMS).  Alerts are triggered to our support engineers should hardware go offline, or if individual components report physical issues (e.g. temperature warnings). Our pro-active support structure always has a real-time view of the global network and can immediately respond to system issues or failures.  It is our aim that the hotel and the guest never have to call us as problems are generally rectified before causing any disruption to HSIA services.

As countries develop legislation to protect against certain forms of cybercrime, it becomes imperative that any public access Internet solution deployed in your property protects you against a warrant for information which you cannot fulfill.  Our systems have the ability to track user activity on a per-device level including websites visited and Internet protocols used.  If a warrant gets issued for this information (Global Gossip currently deal with a number of such warrants each month) we can easily respond with the required data in a timely fashion leaving you to continue running your own business.  All of our credit card transactions are processed in compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS) set out to combat credit card fraud by ensuring such transactions are secure.  We do not store credit card information once the transaction is processed so there is absolutely no risk of this data being compromised.

Comprehensive, real-time reporting is available to each hotel individually, and to the head office of a group of hotels for aggregate statistics covering a wide range of data.  Summary financials are presented showing Internet access revenues which can then be ‘drilled-down’ to the individual transaction level.  Reconciliation with Property Management Systems (PMS) and any credit card or voucher payments made through our systems are easily identified for recording into your own accounting system.  All data available is exportable in a number of formats including text CSV files or Microsoft Excel format spreadsheets for further analysis.