Free and premium WiFi services for guests at no operating cost to hotel

(London, March 5, 2012) – iBAHN, a global leader in IP platform-based systems and broadband technologies for the hospitality industry, today announced a new, guest-sensitive connectivity solution for hotels based on its Freemium model.

The company’s new business model for the hospitality sector allows hotels an easy way to upgrade their WiFi offering to guests, at no operating cost to the hotel. Upon initial roll-out, the model is available only to the company's EMEA customers.

iBAHN’s strategic approach to the evolving hospitality market across the world, and particularly in EMEA, informed the decision to develop the Freemium service while at the same time reflecting the growing demand from hotel customers for free WiFi connectivity.

The free versus paid connectivity debate has become increasingly complex in the past six months, in part due to the explosive growth in mobile networked devices carried by hotel customers, who expect a “home away from home” internet experience when they book into a property.

However, the “as much as you can eat” free WiFi model cannot be sustained commercially as bandwidth needs continue to grow with the prevalence of Big Data in the form of streaming video, games and music content. Business customers at hotels also are increasingly downloading and uploading large documents and connecting on live conferencing facilities.

Recent research by iBAHN shows that mean average data transferred by hotel guests in EMEA, per room in 2011 was 280MB per day, but data reveals some users transferring 200GB – or seven times the mean.

The iBAHN Freemium solution gives hoteliers and their customers the best of all worlds, allowing free WiFi connectivity for low-bandwidth engagement and tasks, while allowing people to choose premium connectivity as a paid-for service if they have more bandwidth-intensive needs.

Through the model properties will not pay iBAHN a fee; instead a chargeable tiered service will incorporate a portion of the charge going to iBAHN for premium services.

Dynamic bandwidth management is configured on the iBAHN system so that the service adjusts to user numbers and bandwidth needs. This ensures both that hotels have control and records of usage while delivering best quality connectivity services at all times. The ‘free to guest’ option limits either time, bandwidth or data transfer and the hotel can select one of these three attributes to be unlimited. A guest who pays for a premium service will have choices to meet their connectivity requirements.

For example, the basic service could offer an hour’s access and 50MB data transfer sufficient for emails and basic web browsing. Guests with heavy data needs, for example large files for download or upload, would be covered by the premium option.

Graeme Powell, MD iBAHN EMEA says: “We have been closely monitoring the rapid change in internet use by hotel guests, and have seen explosive growth in the use of multiple devices and a doubling in data transferred per session every year, which has made the free to guest model unrealistic for many hoteliers. We believe our new Freemium model will provide the solution to the demands for free connectivity while ensuring that there are a range of choices to suit those with greater data needs. This offers a low cost, low risk, revenue generating opportunity for the hotel, by allowing users to choose their level of access, thereby increasing guest satisfaction.”