The Majestic Hotel contacted us about installing a more powerful and efficient wireless network than their existing system. They had been using a legacy wireless solution that had many issues including proper signal coverage. As a result, guests’ computers were constantly dropping off the Internet. This was causing the hotel to lose guests and lose revenue so they contacted SF WiFi to propose a guest wireless network solution for the 33,000 square foot property and we were awarded the project.

Hotel Overview

The Hotel Majestic was constructed in 1902 and is San Francisco’s oldest continuously operating hotel. With distinctive French bay windows, Edwardian styling with vintage architectural details and adorned with French and English antiques. The Majestic not only offers guest the gracious traditions of yesteryear but also provides the guest with all the modern essentials of today.

 Hotel Specs: The property consists of 5 floors, 58 rooms, café bar and restaurant and 2 meeting rooms. Guests were complaining that the wireless coverage was limited, connections and performance was erratic. Adding additional Wi-Fi access points (APs) was not an option because there was no way to extend ethernet cabling throughout the property. The Majestic needed an innovative solution that would satisfy customers without disrupting business or breaking their capital budget.

 SF WiFi gets the call – Project Requirements:

• Wireless coverage throughout the entire hotel
• Minimize the number of access points
• Minimize, mitigate RF interference
• Install AP’s where Ethernet can’t reach
• Centralized and simplified management
• Reduce install times
• Self-configuring, self-tuning adaptive wireless
• Reliable and stable with no support calls
• Consistent performance

Project credits:
Denise Leong – Marketing

SF WiFi solution:

To work around and to minimize the need for additional ethernet cabling we designed a wireless mesh network. Under normal circumstances ethernet cabling is required for all conventional wireless equipment. The SF WiFi design solution implements a WLAN managed mesh network to extend wireless coverage into difficult areas. This design limited the amount of cable required, reduced costs and simplified the installation.   

Benefits:

• Reduced capital costs by eliminating the need to run ethernet
• Dependable Wi-Fi signal quality
• Single Wi-Fi solution for entire hotel
• Mesh design simplified AP placement (product feature)
• Automatic interference avoidance (product feature)
• Automatic failover and resiliency (product feature)
• Wi-Fi coverage with fewer APs (product feature)
• Utilized Power over Ethernet
• One third the cost of “other” wireless product solutions

Santa Clara, Calif. February 16, 2010
Aerohive Networks, creators of the award-winning cooperative control wireless LAN (WLAN) architecture, announced today the release of the HiveAP 110, a cost-effective single radio dual-band 802.11n access point, which provides a more cost effective 802.11n solution for environments that do not require dual radio support, such as small retail and hospitality environments, telecommuters and micro branch locations.

http://www.aerohive.com/

Case study and more to come.