Regent Hotel

The Regent Hotel is both a listed building and now an elegantly styled hotel in the centre of Cambridge. Paolo Paschalis, the owner, had always been eager to provide high-speed Internet access to his customers; so big plans for a major refurbishment presented the ideal time to install a profitable and future-proof system.

After looking for answers and advice from companies like Pipex and other ISPs, it became clear that the hotel could be provided with lines but couldn’t be supplied with managed units for the bedrooms to replace the separate phone-based internet access - making the return on investment point much further away than was attractive.

Unclear where to turn next, Mr. Paschalis attended the Hotel Olympia exhibition. In doing so, he met the team at Flexsys, who gave him a demonstration of the Griffin Internet Access Controller – an inexpensive one-box solution that can bring high-speed Internet access directly into any number of hotel rooms, including hotspots.

With the promise of such a quick return on investment, ease of installation and ready integration with his existing hotel management system, Mr. Paschalis asked to be put in touch with a reseller for his region, which is how faithworks-i.t came to be introduced. And with our extensive experience of the hotel industry’s communications needs, we were ideally placed to help.

The amount of disruption such major refurbishments on this scale would cause the guests doesn’t bear thinking about. So with the hotel already closed, this suited us just fine, as it meant we could carry out the installation work needed in conjunction with the on-site contractors.

We began by installing a 2MB Internet connection to the hotel, whilst setting up a local area network for the office and reception, allowing data and programs to be shared seamlessly, complete with unrestricted Internet access. We then installed the Griffin to manage the customer’s Internet connections, using managed cabling to all of the hotel’s 22 bedrooms, giving each one access via a socket in the wall. We then installed a Wireless Access point in the lounge/bar area, making the Internet available to Centrino and other wireless-enabled laptops. Clearly, security and privacy is paramount in such an open access environment, so we were careful to restrict access by denying browsing between customers PCs, or between bedrooms. In addition, we were able to give the hotel all the wires and components needed to connect their laptops to all parts of the network.

Since faithworks-i.t put in the Griffin solution, the Regent has found their decision to install high-speed Internet access to be very rewarding on several fronts.

To begin with, there’s been a definite increase in business, helped by the fact that there are hardly any hotels in the area offering this kind of convenience.

As far as the hotel is concerned, one of Griffin’s key features has been its flexibility, such as the ability to allocate pin numbers for specific amounts of time, whilst being able to revoke access if necessary.

Meanwhile, the take-up level has been pretty impressive, with around 60% of guests using the service so far (from their bedrooms or in the hotel’s lounge/bar area). This means that the system more than pays its way. And based on the Regent’s current charges, the hotel will soon cover the Griffin’s total costs - well within the first 3 years of use.

On talking to Mr. Paschalis a few months after we’d finished installing his Griffin, he’d made several changes to his business using the advantages of his new high-speed Internet connection - with one or two more in the pipeline.

“[Griffin’s] given me lots of new business opportunities. I’ve set up an old computer in the lounge/bar, connected to the Wireless Access point where I let my customers connect to the Internet if they don’t have any equipment themselves,” he said. “I’m also marketing a drop-in bar for businessmen so that when they are in town on their lunch break, they can pop in and surf the web and check their mail, etc. I’m also looking at a branded USB memory stick for the hotel, so people can take away their downloaded data.”