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Case study
Requirements
· Fast, secure connections to meet the
expectations of high-end guests
· Reliable, secure coverage across the
hotel
· Ability to run staff applications such as
POS and incident reporting
· Support for up to six devices per guest
Solution
· Deployed a range of different RUCKUS
access points and Virtual SmartZone™
Controllers
Benefts
· Enabled further guest services such as
mobile check-in
· Supported a superior guest Wi-Fi
experience
· Improved rapid management
response
· Secured a fast and reliable network
First-Class Wi-Fi for First-Class
Hotel
The Mandarin Oriental is designed to
cater for the needs of senior business
and luxury leisure travellers. The hotel
aims to make its guests feel at home as
MANDARIN ORIENTAL
Keeping guests connected with high-performance,
reliable Wi-Fi
soon as they walk into reception. That
means offering them every service that
they may have at their fngertips in their
own homes, including fast, secure and
reliable Wi-Fi to support every device
that they might care to use during
their stay.
To meet this expectation, Mandarin
Oriental needed a Wi-Fi solution to
support heavy Internet use, such as
video calling and gaming, and had to
ensure that there were no coverage
black spots anywhere in the hotel.
Moreover, the hotel needed to run a
range of corporate applications across
the same network, such as Point of Sale
(POS) systems and mobile check-in, and
Customer
Mandarin Oriental
Country
North America, Europe, Africa, the Middle
East and Asia
The Mandarin Oriental is a chain of premier business hotels, designed for corporate and high-end
guests. The Mandarin Oriental currently has 29 properties, stretching across North America, Europe,
Africa, the Middle East and Asia. In order to fully service the needs of its guests, the company
needed to ensure that the quality of its Wi-Fi was as high as its other guest services.
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provide connectivity to public spaces
such as meeting rooms, ballrooms and,
of course, the hotel reception.
The challenges
Given Mandarin Oriental’s target market,
guests expect easy internet access and
exceptional speeds. The hotel had been
providing Wi-Fi for guests for over ten
years, originally choosing a consumer
solution to provide connectivity.
However, this did not deliver the
stability and reliability expected of it,
so the Mandarin Oriental turned to an
enterprise solution. While this worked
well, they found that the costs were too
high and that the solution was rather
over-engineered.
“We wanted to replicate what our
guests can do at home in our guest
rooms. Providing guests with worldclass Internet services within our hotels
was vital in the development of our
brand. We want our guests to have
access to the latest Wi-Fi technology,
and not settle for legacy technology,”
said Raju Daryanani, vice president of IT
Infrastructure & Information Security at
Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group.
In Mandarin Oriental hotels, 99% of
guests use wireless and often bring
fve or six devices each. In a typical
hotel consisting of 150 rooms, 300-400
devices are likely to be connected at any
one time.
These devices conventionally include
smart-phones, tablets and laptops, and
in some cases, guests also bring with
them devices such as Apple TVs in order
to stream personal TV or video content
into the rooms. Consumer services
such as Skype and Facetime are also
becoming standard for all guests across
the hotels as video messaging becomes
the new norm.
“One of the key challenges we faced was
ensuring there were no connectivity
voids or black spots throughout the
entire hotel,” continued Daryanani.
“We pride ourselves that there is not a
single corner of our properties without
comprehensive Wi-Fi coverage. When
we draw up our coverage maps in key
public areas we look at the required
capacity of the space and deploy
enough access points to handle more
than two times the average number of
devices. This provides our guests with
superior quality of coverage and speeds
that are not matched anywhere else in
the world.”
Different hotels also present their own
unique challenges for access point
deployment, whether due to a unique
floor-pattern or extensive outdoor
areas. These challenges are exemplifed
in the Mandarin Oriental Bali resort
which is currently under construction,
incorporating open air, poolside and
beach locations, all requiring flawless
Wi-Fi coverage.
Ease of management and support
for hotel IT is also central to the
Mandarin Oriental’s ability to run a
high-performance, reliable service. With
technological requirements constantly
evolving, continual cooperation is
required between the hotel IT staff and
the Wi-Fi provider in order to make
sure that all devices that guests may
bring, and all technologies available to
the hotel, are supported with adequate
connection speeds.
“Complaints about internet are
one of the top three complaints
in hotels globally today but we
tend to hear very few.”
Bong Valdez
Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group’s
VP of Technology in Asia
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About RUCKUS Networks
RUCKUS Networks builds and delivers purpose-driven networks that perform in the demanding
environments of the industries we serve. Together with our network of trusted go-to-market partners,
we empower our customers to deliver exceptional experiences to the guests, students, residents,
citizens and employees who count on them.
CS-117229-EN (12/22)
The solution
In the past, the company picked
connectivity solutions which were
either complex and expensive, or which
suffered interference or black-spots
throughout the hotel.
Bong Valdez, Mandarin Oriental Hotel
Group’s VP of Technology in Asia, knows
the problems well. “We’ve been providing
high quality Wi-Fi in guests’ rooms for
about 12 years now,” he commented,
“and to begin with, we picked consumer
connectivity solutions. But it quickly
became clear that they were going to
give us reliability and stability issues,
so we moved to an enterprise solution.
The frst one we worked with was rather
over-engineered. The focus was on
security, rather than openness and
ease of connectivity, which is what we
required. We’re lucky we found RUCKUS!”
Encountering RUCKUS Wireless at a
hotel technology trade show some years
ago, Mandarin Oriental were interested
in the different approach that RUCKUS
took to providing high-end Wi-Fi. They
were impressed that RUCKUS’ local
Managing Director took the time to be
involved with their project and develop
lasting relationships with the company.
Working through a range of local
resellers, RUCKUS deployed a range of
key hardware into Mandarin Oriental
hotels around the world, including Virtual
SmartZone™ Controllers, and RUCKUS
access points. These different models
are all suited to specifc locations,
whether they be meeting rooms, guests
rooms or hallways.
Installing RUCKUS access points has
allowed Mandarin Oriental to make use
of RUCKUS’ patented BeamFlex™ and
ChannelFly™ technologies. RUCKUS
BeamFlex monitors the environment and
dynamically adjusts the signal to the best
performing path, automatically steering
around interference and obstacles.
RUCKUS ChannelFly™ technology
leverages the patented principals from
BeamFlex™ to learn and select the best
RF channel, based on actual realizable
capacity and real-time channel activity.
The benefts
Valdez said that in the hospitality
industry hearing no feedback is often
the best feedback possible. “Complaints
about internet are one of the top three
complaints in hotels globally today, but
we tend to hear very few.”
Having a high-quality wireless connection
has also allowed the hotel to offer
guest apps such as mobile check-in, spa
bookings and other hotel services. These
apps allow guests to step out of their car
and be escorted directly to their rooms
by a staff member without having to stop
at reception.
In addition, the Mandarin Oriental
took advantage of the superior WiFi by equipping staff with iPads and
mobile phones to improve the rapid
management response in the event of
a guest query. For example, if a guest
reports a room defect, the hotel is able
to direct the nearest staff member to
respond quickly and appropriately.
“We’re delighted with the Wi-Fi access
that the RUCKUS deployments have
enabled,” concluded Daryanani. “Our
guests have experienced superior Wi-Fi,
which ultimately means that all of us at
the Mandarin Oriental have also felt the
benefts.”