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Globe and mail wednesday. Internet in hotels
Hotels have a new weapon of choice in the battle to attract business travellers. It is high-speed Internet access that can turn guest rooms into high-tech offices.
At least four Canadian hotels now have systems that allow guests with Ethernet cards to plug in their laptops and link directly to all the Web and E-mail facilities available in their home office. The signals travel through special wiring that bypasses the hotels' phone network. Travellers have no need to reconfigure their computers or to tie up a phone line. The hotels are also putting the new technology into meeting rooms and, in some cases, even into restaurants.
"Within five years," says Bill Harrison, general manager of the Radisson Suite Hotel Halifax, "every major metropolitan hotel will offer this or they are going to be left behind. The corporate traveller is going to be used to it and will expect it." The Halifax property launched high-speed Internet access in all its rooms in January.
Guests pay $9.95 for unlimited use over a 24-hour period, plus any charges involved for faxing and printing. Across the country, the Sheraton Suites Calgary Eau Claire, which has the same owners, launched a similar system in all its rooms a few weeks later at $13.95 for 24 hours.
In Vancouver, the Sheraton Wall Centre has been working with a different set of technical suppliers to equip all 454 of its rooms with a system it claims is similar, but also the fastest on the market. It recently began levying a $15-a-day charge for the service, after offering it free for some weeks as a test.
Meanwhile last week, the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel launched DataValet, yet another version of the same product. It costs $10 a day plus fax and printing charges. The Toronto hotel has initially wired 178 guest rooms and suites on business floors and will gradually extend to all rooms. It is now wiring its 36 meeting rooms.
Business travellers won't be able to escape the Internet even when eating. The Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel has put 16 high-speed Internet ports at "tables for one" in its Bistro on Two restaurant. There are also restaurant Internet search stations at the Sheraton Suites Calgary Eau Claire.
Various teams of technical companies are involved in the systems. All are busy beating the bushes to sign up other hotels. SolutionInc of Halifax, which developed the technology now in use in Halifax and Calgary, has teamed up with MDU Communications of Vancouver and with 3Com Canada. That group is currently installing an Internet system at the new Vancouver Airport Hilton and at the Newstead Hotel in Bermuda, and is talking to hotels across Canada.
RoomLinX Inc in partnership with Cisco Systems Inc., which equipped the Sheraton Wall Centre in Vancouver, has also signed up the Delta Vancouver Suite Hotel. Also looking for new hotel customers are the partners involved in the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel project; they are Bell Nexxia, Nortel Networks, TravelNet Technologies and Elastic Networks.
High-speed Internet technology for hotel rooms is in its infancy in the U.S. as well as in Canada. Tim Wilson, president of SolutionInc, estimates the feature is available at fewer than 50 U.S. hotels.
Reach Douglas McArthur by E-mail at dmcarthur@globeandmail.ca .
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