Here is a newspaper article on the internet service..
Last Updated: Tuesday 29 June 1999 LOCAL BUSINESS
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Richmond hotel gives high-speed access
The Vancouver Sun
Jenny Lee, Sun Business Reporter Vancouver Sun
Mark Van Manen, Vancouver Sun / THE RIGHT CONNECTIONS: Jim Mashford, general manager of the Hilton Hotel in Richmond, shows T1 Line connection that enables guests to have high-speed internet access on their own laptops.
The new Hilton Vancouver Airport Hotel offers what most hotels do -- a well-appointed room, a comfortable bed, in-room movies -- and something most don't -- high-speed Internet access.
No more than 50 hotels in the world offer a high-speed link to the Net, with just a handful of these in North America, said Richard Hazell, technology vice-president of MDU Communications Inc. of Richmond, which installed the Hilton system.
Most hotels that offer Internet services offer only telephone access which may require travellers to reconfigure their machines, involve long-distance telephone charges, tie up the telephone line and provide slow access of 30 to 56 kilobits per second, Hazell said. The MDU solution connects users at 1.5 megabits per second.
"We've allowed people to get hooked into the Internet at high speed without having to change any laptop or browser settings," he said.
MDU installed the Hilton Internet service as a risk free proposition for the hotel: It provided all financing for the turnkey project and a full interface to the hotel billing system and took responsibility for marketing, promotions and after-market care. Guests are charged $12.95 per day. Revenue will be shared between MDU and the hotel.
The Hilton is one of four B.C. hotels offering high-speed Internet service, but traveller demand will force rapid expansion over the next year, Hilton general manager Tim Mashford predicted.
"It's something that's going to happen very, very quickly. You'll see this become commonplace in new hotels and will see a lot of the older hotels rewiring or implementing solutions over existing telephone lines."
About 20 Internet access firms are vying for the North American hotel market, said MDU competitor Jason Arnold, president of Vancouver-based RoomLinX Inc., which installed a high-speed Internet service at the Sheraton Wall Centre hotel several months ago.
That service is offered at $15 a day, but Arnold said prices in general can be expected to drop rapidly over the next year.
The battle for market share is expected to be fast and furious with the budding industry consolidating to just five players within 12 months, Arnold said.
Mashford talked to eight potential suppliers before settling on MDU which was already installing digital satellite television for the hotel.
The beauty of the new systems is simplicity and speed, which means retrieving Power Point presentations will take seconds or minutes rather than hours.
"All a person has to do is plug into a high-speed port, turn on the laptop and launch the browser," said MDU president Sheldon Nelson.
The browser brings up a registration site which asks for the user's name and room number for billing purposes, then allows access to the Web and the user's e-mail.
The registration site can also be used for advertising banners and to publicize guest services, Nelson said.
Nelson said MDU, which also wires multiple-dwelling buildings for satellite TV and other services, sees potential for the service in condominiums and apartment buildings.
"Apartment owners will have their own website and can link in to local grocery stores who want to supply residents in that building. They'll also be able to supply specific messages to specific residents," Nelson said.
Technically, the MDU system relies on proprietary Solution Inc. software and 3Com hardware that allow the MDU-installed LAN at the hotel to communicate with the traveller's laptop without requiring setting changes.
Travellers whose corporate offices have virtual private networks, or software that allows them to communicate with their secured corporate intranets over the public Internet, have the further advantage of being able to log on from the hotel as though they were at their home offices.
Nelson said the Hilton system is costing the company about $200,000.
The company has also installed digital satellite television and video conferencing capability, and is establishing hubs within banquet rooms to allow travellers to be networked within the hotel as well as to their corporate networks.
Susan Gomez, general manager of the Pan Pacific Hotel in Vancouver, said her hotel currently offers high-speed access and video conferencing in a number of rooms, telephone access in others, and is looking at extending high-speed access throughout the hotel.
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