Wi-Fi access for guests now at smaller hotels

With the rapid growth of wireless Internet access installations in hotels in the past year, it won't be long before guests regard this new technology as a standard and routine service. Only a few months ago, new Wi-Fi hotspot networks were trumpeted by luxury hotels. But today, wireless services are available at lower-priced, smaller hotels.

Pronto Networks, a provider of Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) hotspot networks, has announced a partnership with GuestWiFi, a company that sells wireless services for hotels. Using Pronto Networks' Wi-Fi infrastructure and hosted services, GuestWiFi is now providing high speed wireless Internet access services to business travelers at over a dozen hotels in six states, primarily throughout the northeast United States, including several Holiday Inn and Best Western locations.

"More and more of our customers are requesting hi-speed Internet access and are selecting hotels based on its availability," said Bill Vasbinder, general manager of Holiday Inn Express in Milford, Mass., and one of GuestWiFi's customers. "As wireless, hi-speed access becomes increasingly available at work and at home, business travelers are looking for the same fast connection and convenience while on the road."

Sales and installation

In this partnership, GuestWiFi will handle the sales and installation and provide hotel customers with point-of-sale kits for fast start service launch. Pronto Networks, through its Hotspot Managed Services, will provide all back office operations including authentication, security, pre-paid and post-paid billing, network monitoring, roaming settlement, and toll free customer service.

"Pronto's Wi-Fi infrastructure solution was designed specifically for public wireless LANs and, as such, is well suited for the hotel market," said Joe Germanotta, president of GuestWiFi. "By deploying Pronto's Hotspot Managed Services we are able to offer services that are flexible, easy-to-install, and affordable by even the smallest hotel."

He said GuestWiFi's services fit the budget of small to mid-sized hotel owners, the largest segment of the hospitality industry, and is modular so hotel owners can expand the service area as needed.

Back-end technology

"Pronto is proud to partner with GuestWiFi in the deployment of wireless solutions at hotels," said Doug Hilmes, vice president of business development for Pronto Networks. "With GuestWiFi's customer facing expertise and our back-end technology and operational experience, we are able to successfully address one of the fastest growing segments for Wi-Fi build out."

Launched six months ago, GuestWiFi has provided wireless service for a number of hotel customers, including such well-known brands as Baymont Inn, Best Western, Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Quality Inn, SpringHill Suites by Marriott and FourPoints Sheraton. GuestWiFi is forecasting 45,000 minutes of use for the month of May 2003.

Pronto Networks, based in Pleasanton, Calif., provides carrier-class Operations Support Systems (OSS) that enable network operators to deploy and manage large public hot spot networks. The company's software handles provisioning, configuration, authentication, access control, security, pre-paid and post-paid billing, and roaming settlement for large public WLAN networks, in addition to remotely managing and updating multi-vendor hardware and WiFi switches. Pronto Networks is funded by Draper Fisher Jurvetson and the Intel Communications Fund.

GuestWiFi is a participant in the Intel Centrino mobile technology marketing campaign aimed at increasing awareness and use of public WLAN access points that have been verified for Intel Centrino mobile technology. GuestWiFi locations are included in Intel's worldwide hot spot locator.

GuestWiFi is part of an international marketing campaign sponsored by Intel and Pronto Networks. The campaign is part of the upcoming Intel Centrino mobile technology launch targeted for mid-March.

Aimed at increasing awareness and use of public wireless access points, GuestWiFi locations have been verified for Intel Centrino mobile technology. 

Participating in this campaign will provide guests an extra incentive to stay at  hotspot hotels and other locations, which will be added to Intel’s worldwide hot spot locator. 

Partner with Gemtek

Two weeks ago at the CeBIT technology trade show in Hannover, Germany, Pronto Networks, announced a partnership with Gemtek Systems, a leading provider of carrier-grade Wi-Fi public access solutions, to deliver an end-to-end Wi-Fi public access solution targeting mobile operators and ISPs. The solution will comprise Gemtek System’s access points and gateways along with Pronto’s wireless OSS, which performs provisioning, configuration, authentication, access control, security, pre-paid and post-paid billing, roaming settlement, and network management for public access WLANs.

"Our partnership with Gemtek Systems makes perfect sense given the complimentary nature of our solutions," said Jasbir Singh, president and CEO of Pronto Networks. “Gemtek Systems has developed a comprehensive suite of hardware products for the public access market for which Pronto’s public access OSS system can seamlessly provide all the back-office operations.”

"Our customers benefit immensely from our integrated approach to Wi-Fi public access solutions because they are secure, dependable, easy to manage, user-friendly and completely interoperable," said Hans van der Hoek, CEO of Gemtek Systems. "Since both companies have developed solutions tailored to the Wi-Fi public access market, together we provide carriers a standards-based, interoperable ‘best of breed’ solution that guarantees low total cost of ownership."