Related to this, Cisco also claims that in 2011, mobile data traffic was 8 times the size of the entire global Internet in 2000..!

The mobile web’s growth and its unending need for more data, more connectivity and more bandwidth, shows no signs of slowing.

The devices themselves are driving this growth, with smartphones that are capable of doing more, a lot faster and of course the rise of the tablet. Another fact from Cisco – by 2016, mobile-connected tablets will generate almost as much traffic as the entire global mobile network does in 2012!

However the key growth driver comes from the fact that increases in mobile connectivity have allowed mobile devices to function as tools for media consumption. By 2016, video will represent over 70% of mobile traffic – think of hugely popular YouTube and Netflix etc, but we also can’t get enough of downloading music (eg Pandora, Spotify), gaming, or social networking apps, to our mobile devices.  A smartphone owner who uses Netflix, Pandora and Facebook will generate more than twice the volume of traffic as generated by a smartphone owner only using email and web apps….

This explosion in mobile data traffic is having a significant impact on the hotel industry and causing sleepless nights for IT managers who are having to deal with the reality of providing adequate bandwidth to support it. 

The ‘BYOD’ (Bring Your Own Device) trend is creating a new generation of guests who are carrying 3-4 personal mobile devices to access both work and entertainment content –a growing proportion of this is streamed music and video – and guests simply expect to have the bandwidth on tap in the hotel to support it.

It is vital for hotels to have a strategic partner who can support them 24/7 in managing these fluctuating bandwidth demands, providing them with the appropriate levels of connectivity to underpin their guests’ growing Internet demands, identifying the different Internet traffic profiles – and proactively managing the bandwidth pipes to ensure optimum efficiency for the hotel and service quality for guests.

Bandwidth management takes on many forms such as speed capping (i.e. setting bandwidth limits on a per guest/user basis) or by setting priorities according to the hotel’s requirements (e.g. giving priority to premium paying guests’ Internet usage such as business travellers).  Taking a proactive stance to identify and manage guests’ Internet traffic, enables hotels to not only manage the traffic for today but dimension accordingly to meet the anticipated increasing trends in usage.

This is a major challenge for hotels – What is your experience? I would really like to hear your comments…  Myself and members of the QNetworks team will be at Hitec 2012 (booth 2428) next week in Baltimore and would welcome the opportunity to discuss how we could help you to address any of your concerns…

For example:

• 300% year-on-year growth;
• 14 million iPads sold by Apple in Q1 2012 alone;
• Tablet shipments outpacing notebook shipments by 10:1;
• Tablet sales to reach 132million by 2013;
• …..and according to Cisco’s ‘Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update’ – by 2016, mobile-connected tablets will generate almost as much traffic as the entire global mobile network does in 2012…!

I could go on..but it would seem the tablet is here to stay.  It is impacting our home lives – and also now increasingly our work lives –  and the implications for the hotelier are numerous.  It goes without saying you need appropriate WiFi in all areas of your hotel so that your guests can easily connect. This means ensuring that you have sufficient WiFi coverage – remembering that for some tablets, notably the iPad, the antennae can be less responsive to Wifi signals.

However a key implication for me is the significant opportunity created by the tablet device for the hotelier….

We like tablets because they allow us to interact and to get a really rich experience of a product or service; they are easy to use, practical and convenient; they enable us to access content when we choose to and browse at our leisure, quite often whilst we are looking at a second screen, namely the TV ( In fact according to the UK’s Institute of Business 72% of tablet users dual screen with the TV).

Hoteliers need to be considering – if they aren’t already – the opportunity to attract and engage their guests by providing relevant content via the tablet, in a format that is attractive to guests and more likely therefore to encourage them to purchase. It also reduces your print costs and helps the environment!

The opportunities are endless – provide a digital concierge service to your guests to provide immediate access to all of the information they need to manage and enjoy their stay; promote your dining and leisure facilities; promote other hotels in your group or perhaps partner services…and how about using compelling images and information to up-sell items from your menu, wine or drinks list?

We have recently launched three new mobile apps – QValet, QMenu and QDelegate which provide a platform for hoteliers to optimise the tablet opportunity and customer feedback so far is very positive.  Take a look at how they could transform your guest communications and provide a new and exciting digital platform to reach your guests as well as deliver new revenue opportunities!

And to ensure that your network is fully optimised to support this “new age” our QNetworks team are available to advise on your guest network infrastructure, network management and bandwidth optimisation.

Also – We are very excited to be at Hitec 2012 in Baltimore, USA next week where we will be demonstrating the technology which enables hotels to deliver a ‘unified guest experience’ integrating guest mobile devices with the in-room TV…watch this space!

Seemingly, guests enjoy a good laugh, with blockbuster comedies coming out on top of a list compiled by Quadriga, showing the most popular movies taken from our guest communication platforms (see below). ‘The Hangover Part II’ (Warner Bros) has been named the most popular guest choice, with ‘Little Fockers’ (Universal) coming in second.

As further evidence to the preference for a good comedy movie, released in October last year, ‘Bridesmaids’ (Universal) has already become the most watched video-on-demand movie of all time. Thanks to Internet VOD, pay-per-view and electronic transactions, the movie has made a gross total of $40million in the U.S from over 7 million orders – with hotel viewings a key contribution.

A major focus for us is how we can develop our TV platforms to maximise revenue opportunities for hotels. Despite an increasing trend towards guests accessing their own content via mobile devices, our research shows little year on year change for the guest purchase of on-demand movies and we have been working hard with content providers to enable our hotel customers to offer the widest choice of entertainment content and the very latest (pre DVD release) blockbuster movies. There are a number of exciting movies to be released this year. Working with our partners, we are committed to delivering the very best to our customers and to their guests, from the silver-screen.

Top twenty watched movies through Quadriga’s platforms for 2011 are:

We have seen some significant debate about the future success of ‘Smart TV’ or ‘Connected TV’ as a consumer technology, but if the interest being taken in it by the major TV manufacturers (witness the huge focus on it at the recent CES show) and the huge numbers being forecasted (892m connected TVS worldwide by 2016 – source: Informa), are anything to go by, then the future looks good.  Add to this the fact that Google is re-entering the market.

Then of course consider the ‘online’ facts…

- ‘If Facebook was a country, it would be the world’s third largest and twice the size of the U.S. population’
- ‘Approximately 52million have watched the Volkswagen Darth Vader Kid advertisement on YouTube’
- ‘Amazon’s Kindle e-book sales surpassed sales of paperbacks last year’
- ‘Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Britney Spears have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of North Korea, Australia, Chile, Israel, Sweden, Greece

The impact of all of this on the Guest TV is likely to be profound…..

At Quadriga we are very excited about the opportunities offered by Smart TV technology to the hospitality sector.  The number of ‘consumer’ Smart TVs being sold is real evidence of the potential appeal to guests of accessing web applications via the TV. However it’s early days with some technical complexities in the hotel environment to overcome – sufficient bandwidth to support multiple users presents a significant consideration for hotels, as well as appropriate management of the network required to support them. That’s why our specialist Networks team is working closely with customers to deliver the appropriate solution to meet their needs.

Smart TV excites me, and it figures large in our plans. But what do you think?

New digital technology has changed how we like to be entertained and informed and consumer brands are turning more and more to online media to help them reach their audiences.

Considering this,  we believe that a hotel’s guest communication and entertainment system represents a real  opportunity as a new digital advertising medium….

Why?

In a hotel room the guest is virtually a captive audience – research indicates that the hotel guest is less likely to get distracted whilst watching the TV and is more likely to watch TV commercials.

In fact, it is a proven fact that of those that own a DVR, people are very likely to fast-forward through commercials whilst viewing programmes at home.

Additionally, when you consider that as an example, Quadriga has digital systems installed in over 210,000 guest rooms, this presents a considerable captive audience to potential advertisers…

And this in turn provides a new potential revenue opportunity for the hotel…

On the face of it, this looks very exciting, however we need to ensure that any concerns of the hotelier are met…

Hotels – rightly so – will be concerned to protect their guests; to ensure that the brands advertised are appropriate, and that the guest is not irritated by the advertising. Any advertising should be discrete and should not impact the overall guest experience.  Like any new concept or service, any advertising would need to be trialled to monitor impact on guest behaviour and guest satisfaction.

Handled with care, we think this is a great opportunity, for brands looking for new communication channels, for the advertising industry – and for the hotelier….

Hotel TVs are watched by such a wide variety of consumer profiles. From the jet-setting business professional to the family enjoying time in a resort to the culture loving city break enthusiasts –demographics most advertising specialists can only dream of.  That’s what we think anyway…what do you think?

I think hyper-connectivity could fundamentally reframe the nature of the guest stay, redefine the hotel room, as well as enhance the guest experience. At its heart is a need to be always switched ‘on’ – to live in the personal, inter-connected, interactive, and globally accessible world of now. It could mean the guest experience becomes less about the hotel and more about ‘my’ experience. This will mean the most important factor of the guest experience becomes a seamless user experience as well as the provision of new technologies. It could also mean that the room is no longer the hotel’s room but my world: an extension of ‘my’ home, ‘my’ business, ‘my’ personal life and ‘my’ social life. The role of the Guest TV could be less focused around hotel defined content, but increasingly around ‘my’ content or apps – and becomes less of a hotel branding device and more an extension of ‘my’ digital personality.  We already live in a world where the in-room TV is considered as another ‘device’, as guests digitally multi-task with ‘my’ PC and ‘my’ smart phone. And most profoundly, it could mean that the guest’s relationship with the hotel can endure long after their stay.

Quadriga is wrestling with the challenges of hyper-connectivity right now, and creating some really interesting solutions for the hospitality industry. But we’re not arrogant enough to believe we have all the answers. And we’re definitely open to very different thoughts and fresh points of view. Challenge us, provoke some new perspectives, and refocus the debate – so let’s get some discussion going.

There’s no doubt that 3D technology is an emerging technology. In a recent article in Hospitality Magazine, Quadriga’s Roger Taylor discussed how historically, guests enjoyed facilities in a hotel that were unavailable to them at home. For example, in the 1970s when most households were still watching TV in black and white, many hotels had invested in colour. Again, years before Sky TV became common place in UK living rooms, scheduled content and movies were available in hotels. Today, it seems that the acceleration of consumer technology has meant that many travellers now own sophisticated entertainment systems at home that are difficult, not to mention costly, for hoteliers to match. To read the full article click here

For the more forward- thinking hotels, 3D delivers a way to bring back some of that old in-room excitement – and can be easily achieved with a little investment. Although clearly the two things that will drive the future success of 3D TV are available content and ease of use. We don’t feel this is far away. Its why we recently announced our plans working with Samsung Electronics, to develop a 3D video on-demand solution specifically designed for the hospitality sector through our Sensiq platform. In an exciting partnership, we are set to deliver a 3D in-room experience that will enable guests to watch selected 3D content on-demand. A joint solution with LG is set to follow shortly and we also work today with Philips to bring a stunning 3D cinematic viewing experience to in-room entertainment via its Cinema TV in 21:9 format.

It’s really exciting to be at the frontier of technological advancements in the hospitality sector. I wonder what new in-room technology we will be talking about in 10 or even 20 years time…..it would be great to hear your views!

I think the ability to view and manage a wide variety of digital content on personal PCs, consumer electronics products and mobile devices is a challenge that many hoteliers will have to overcome – soon. The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) offers one solution. It is a consumer technology with the potential to allow guests to watch ‘brought-in’ personal content via the guest TV. It is an industry-wide standard for sharing data on a home-network, and there has been an unprecedented level of growth in the number of DLNA Certified TVs during the first quarter of 2011 – yet it has not yetbeen widely adopted by the hospitality industry.

According to the DLNA, there are more than 4,000 certified TV models available and total shipments of connected DLNA TVs in 2015 are expected to reach 138 million worldwide. These figures almost guarantee that DLNA will become a prominent technology in the hospitality sector.

What steps do I think hotels should take? They will certainly need to have a robust Wi-Fi service to support the streaming of content from guest devices. They should also look to partner with an established and experienced integrator to help navigate through the various complexities and challenges and hotels need to be sure to choose the right partner. Expertise is needed to understand the expectations of the guest to provide the necessary network and infrastructure, appropriate communications platforms and relevant TV content. Getting this right will ensure that hotels maximise the potential return on investment they are looking for. What do you think? I would be interested to hear your views about this exciting technology and its impact on the hotel industry.

We have always believed that technology is central to what drives guest revenues for hotels and a two day internet and entertainment bundle will support this further. It’s a win-win situation, with additional revenues for the hotel as well as satisfied guests who feel they have received a good deal. Each bundle will include a superb choice of on-demand entertainment content and unlimited use of the internet service for a two day period, making a stay at the hotel that more enjoyable.

Initial results have been encouraging from trial hotels and we are continuing to monitor performance as we roll out to more sites. We plan to roll out a series of new and varied bundle options across 2012, encouraging more guest revenue opportunities. Watch this space!