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Many of the concerns that a hotelier might have regarding the upgrade of the physical hardware at the base of their information technology system, their cable network, to fiber optic wiring have been addressed in recent years. Fiber has been around since the 70s, and the cable is stronger and more flexible than copper alternatives. In order to determine whether or not a fiber upgrade is right for a specific property, one should first consider the technological needs of the hotel and be sure that the increased bandwidth and speed are really needed. The hotelier should also consider when the switch will be most cost effective and time efficient. This usually coincides with a hotel remodel. Finally, while the cost /foot of fiber installation has become comparable with that of copper over the years, one should educate himself regarding the terminology and mechanics of a fiber network before shopping installation quotes. A solid understanding of interoperability and terminal needs will keep the costs at a minimum while limiting the need to reinstall cable in the future.

This article describes one of the worst situations that could occur when operating a hotel. According to the text, Wyndham Hotel Group failed to implement a strong enough security system, resulting in hackers breaching the network and stealing over 600,000 credit card numbers and over 10 million dollars in fraudulent charges. The FTC is suing Wyndham Corporation for failing to take the proper security measures to guarantee the security of the most important customer information. The FTC also states that Wyndham used improper software configurations that presented credit card information in a manner that was clear and easy to read. Michael Valentino, spokesman for Wyndham Worldwide, the company made prompt efforts to notify those whose information had been compromised and according to Valentino, no hotel customer had experienced a financial loss as a result of the attacks.  Despite Valentino's claims, the FTC is suing Wyndham for unfair and deceptive practices in failing to protect the privacy and personally identifiable information about guests. The FTC claims that Wyndham failed to address the security failures that occurred after the first breach in 2008 and did not implement technology that could have detected unauthorized access to networks. In 2009, hackers used similar techniques to break into the network again as steal as much personal information as they could. 

The article shows how a unified computing and communication system helps a company implement a new technology. While the new technology system is worth a multimillion-dollar investment; the benefits have provided the company excellent financial results. It allowed the company to consolidate 18 room reservation and telephone operations into a single location. Another advantage from the update is the capability for Station Casinos to connect 15,000 different devices which include some of the newer slot machines that have been installed. The new technology reduces downtime; this is an advantage as downtime could lead to potential monetary loss. Finally, the update while costing millions of dollars, the financial return on the investment is tremendously impactful to the company.

This article speaks about a seemingly successful turn around for a struggling casino group in Las Vegas after making multimillion-dollar investments for I.T. over a period of time. While it has not completely eradicated all their problems, Stations Casinos Inc., which operates 18 hotels, and casinos off the Vegas Strip has saved tremendously by providing a cohesive communication computer system that has allowed greater efficiency ultimately saving money. An example of efficiency is cutting down data center server racks from 12 to one. More advantages showed with reduced cost due to less power and energy being used to maintain more infrastructures. An upgrade in network allowed for their slot machines and security cameras to connect across the board. This is important because, " about 80% of revenue comes from slot machines," said Baltz. These are just a few advantages the Stations Casinos Inc., has experienced since their investment. After reading this article, it just goes to show how important the I.T. department can be to the profitability of a hotel, casino or other hospitality entity. Usually we think of the product or service as the revenue generators of a business, but this type of article shows that, by saving money, the trickle down effect of increasing profits will occur when you cut expenses.

If there was ever any question that IT investment could drastically benefit companies, this scenario is the proof. A group of struggling Las Vegas Casinos really turned there negative situation around with the use of new interactive technology. This interactive technology is not only beneficial in the hotel world, but apparently casinos as well. The possibilities for this technology are endless, as long as it continues to advance. Guests and costumers who continue to be satisfied with their enhanced technological experience, will give companies and businesses large profits. Just as the casinos had a drastic turnaround by utilizing technology, other groups will do the same.

This articles describes the importance of E-commerce and social networking on the hospitality industry. The social sites like facebook, twitter and instagram has proven beneficial for the marketing of the hospitality industry. Individuals post their experience on these networking sites, which indirectly helps in marketing of the hospitality firms. The use of internet and hotel website has proven, to increase the revenue of the hotels, many people book directly through the hotel websites, which increases the revenue for the hotels as well save the commission paid to the travel agents. The loyalty programs introduced by various hotel, took a new shape all together after internet became the major source in these hotels. It was convenient for the guest to check how much points the have in their account and the tier level. The hotels also started offering guest extra points to their account, if they booked the room directly through the hotel website. This resulted in an substantial increase in the RevPar of the hotels.

This articles brings importance to the fact that companies should take initiatives to modernize networking. It explains how new technologies will improve every area of a business.

This article highlights the need for hotel guests to be weary of the fact that the use of a hotel's Wi-Fi is not always secure. With more hotels opening up for guests to use their rooms and spaces as work offices, the FBI has stated that with the limited cyber security that hotel Wi-Fi has, it is possible for hackers to create fake Wi-Fi networks and steal or damage guest data. The article makes it known that it is much safer to use the network at home, that that at a hotel.

This is an excellent article about redundancy and how to provide backups in the case of system failure. The article is not specifically targeted towards the hospitality industry but its recommendations for preparation in case of emergency are especially applicable to the service industry -- specifically to 24-hour establishments like hotels.

According to the article, the Red Lion Hotel on the River - Jantzen Beach has implemented the GroupMAX online reservation system in order to streamline and simplify event planning for meeting professionals. Planners that choose Red Lion Hotel on the River for their event will be equipped with a powerful set of tools that include various templates and themes, libraries, bundles and customized event websites. The booking process for each event also includes a dedicated social network, which helps drive attendance and extend the event lifecycle, allowing attendees to connect before, during and after the event. An event-centric social networking option dramatically boosts the perceived value of the event. While guests enjoy the convenience of online booking and networking, meeting planners can track the progress of their events via their own set of online dashboards that provide automated email alerts and other tools helping to mitigate the difficulties of managing room blocks and bookings.

The Red Lion Hotel has implemented the GroupMAX online reservation system to streamline and simplify the event planning. For hosting the events and also using the related facilities, Red Lion has became the convention destination. Now GroupMAX may combine the housing management, communications, booking processes and logistics together and working with the hotel. Red Lion has a lot of powerful tools to guarantee the event. Also, the mobile version of booking website can be accessed from other mobile devices. Booking process for each event is more like a social network. The event will present the value. Meeting planners will track the progress of the events through the dashboards that provide automated email alerts. Those things all make sure the events going smoothly.

This article report that sensitive data such as credit card information can be easily received through hotel wireless networks by cybercriminals due to the poor protection network. With the information, cybercriminals can make clone credit cards, which are indistinguishable from the real one and difficult to be traced. What worse is it takes months for hotels, customer and credit card companies to find out this criminal activity. Although hotels have began to step up security, this article notice that customers, especially those travel a lot, need to pay attention to their bank statement since the trend of hacker attacks didn't go down.

Computer networks have highly benefited various fields of educational sectors, business world and many organizations. They can be seen every where they connect people allover the world. There are some major advantages which compute networks has provided making the human life more relaxed and easy.

This article was very interesting because it talked about how you can avoid network treats when it comes to your hospitality business. I like the first step in misconfigured remote access tools, which allows hackers to really guess the password that you put. They had an idea in where if you were to guess the password right, you still have to do something a second time just to make sure that the person is not an impostor. You have to always check that your software security is up to date because if not people can really affect your compare, which is not good at all. If you have everything up to date, you most likely will not get any virus that will make your computer/system slow. You should also always secure your WI FI because a person does not have to be in a restaurant to use the WI FI and get into the restaurant system. So you always want to have separate critical network from wireless network. We also learned in this article that in the computers in a restaurant you should always have antivirus so that you do not catch anything that might get infected. You should not plug in anything that you know has been infected by virus into your companies company because they computer will catch it and thief's can get into it. You should restrict access to the Internet form the internal network. Your goal is to keep any virus or make it hard for a hacker to get into your system in your company to steal your information especially guest personal information, which is very important.

Cisco systems, one of the worlds leading multinational technology companies, partnered with Apple to provide users a seamless experience when it comes to work related applications. The Cisco-Apple partnership occurred in 2015, however Cisco recently released that they originally tried to partner with Android. Why did the collaboration go sour? Well Android has multiple manufactures and an open source OS, meaning that the Cisco had to approach each in order to solidify the use of there network. The company didn't have enough resources to do so, so they ventured to Apple, who fully controls its systems and new releases. The integration and use of Cisco network allows Apple users to do things like "shift voice calls from carriers to wireless LAN without losing things like call logging for compliance".

There are several advantages to utilizing Apple systems and partnering with the, As you mentioned, they control their systems and new releases. They are also have more users than other systems for their mobile devices. This was a very smart decision by Cisco to drive their business.

INNCOM is the global hospitality-industry leader in advanced energy-management and Integrated Room Automation Systems (IRAS) for hotels and resorts. Furthermore, INNCOM is considered to be a pioneer in wireless environment installation with extensive experience in networking guestroom equipment and 25 years of tradition. INNCOM invented a Deep Mesh Network which uses advanced radio frequency technology to provide better control and monitoring over a hotel's HVAC, lighting and other equipment with the goals of reducing energy consumption and simultaneously improving the guest experience. In case of the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort & Spa, it had upgraded its guestroom temperature control system to a networked energy management system utilizing the Deep Mesh Network (DMN) architecture from INNCOM, and since the 1,310-room property converted to this robust wireless environment (nearly eight months ago), energy consumption has dropped by 21 percent without requiring the 40-year-old facility to undergo an extensive or costly installation effort. After all, energy conservation is not just a question of saving money, but saving something that is home to us all: the earth.

In the future, the technology in hotels are developing faster and faster, better and better, it will make guests control more by just touching the button or screen. Nowadays, guests plugged-in the hotels or restaurants by online reservation via the high-tech networks and telecommunications. There are a lot of aspects in the hotels guests using the networks and telecommunications to connect with hotels. For example, before guests come to hotels, they made a reservation online, it needs network; and then, when they get into the hotel, they will check-in by self-service or using the hotel computers, which is convenient to guests. In addition, taking the Aloft Hotels in Hong Kong as an excellent example, guests can use their SPG card to go to their rooms directly without front desk check-in, and then when they go into the room, they can connect their phones and computers whatever they want to the hotel TV. Furthermore, Las Vegas guests can use a touch button to require cleaning services,view room charges, or survey the International Flight Schedule, all of these are related to the high-tech networks, if there is no power or no network, all of these technologies are went out. To sum it up, networks and telecommunications are extraordinary significant to hospitality industry, it represents a kind of luxury and top level of a hotel, it can bring more and more guests for itself.

From what I read about this article, I think this high-tech brings benefits both to hotels and guests. It improves hotel's working efficiency. At the same time, it brings convenience to guests when they check in. As an old saying goes, kill two birds with one stone. This is worthy recommended technology.

Because of increasing demand, China has been one of the fastest developing markets for Meru--an American wireless network provider. The company expects that its revenues in the Asia-Pacific region will double in the next two to three years. The company thinks that China's education industry could be a safe place to find profits and the rapid-growing hospitality industry in China is likely to become another gold mine. It is estimated that China's five-star hotels could exceed 1000 by 2015. However, China has a habit of adopting its own communication standards so that overseas communication network providers seem to have trouble adapting to the different industry standards. Therefore, Meru has reached a decision to cooperate with China's telecom carriers to better develop the market.

Recent years, in China, hotel industry has a fast growth. Especially the Olympic Games and The World Expo were hold in China. For lots of high standard hotel, the WIFI internet access becomes necessary. China has been one of the fastest developing markets for many Wi-Fi firms, Ruckus is one of them. The Asia-Pacific region is the fastest growth region and China business is the fastest-growing part in the region. Globally, Wi-Fi technology is one of the few industries that could maintain a 20 percent increase over the years when the world economy is encountering a downturn. The global market scale for Wi-Fi networking providers is about $3 billion this year and it could reach $5 billion by 2015, the CEO of Ruckus estimated. For the China market and the problems of hotel, Ruckus published the high-speed Wi-Fi wall switch technology. This new technology redefines the deployment model and cost structure for hotels looking to converge their wired and wireless networks into a single infrastructure capable of reliably connecting a new world of in-room IP-based devices and services. Meanwhile, the rapid-growing hospitality industry in China is likely to become another gold mine for Wi-Fi providers. Ruckus wants to grasp this opportunity.

I found this article very interesting as it covers some of the next technological changes the hotel industry would see. Hotel companies and property owners are spending lots of money to ensure they are able to satisfy modern day traveler's needs. As technology advances and more and more studies show travelers prefer to use their own mobile devices, companies have to constantly improve their mobile platform. Sooner or later hotels will have mobile keys that work via a phone on the customers phone or tabloid. Features like mobile keys, check-in, and communications via a mobile app will all require significant amount of investments by major hotel chains. All of these new types of feature also require more advanced security to protect hotel stayers while using the hotels' mobile apps. Over the long run the investment will pay off for large hotel companies as they will gain tons of data and data is very powerful and useful. I am interested to see how this affects small-scale motels as the investment in mobile platforms may not be feasible for an independent motel.

This article discusses six of the new upcoming trends in the hospitality industry in regards to technology. The first is mobile ubiquity - meaning the amount of usability of guests using mobile devices to check in, make a reservation, or purchase. The second is integrating mobile data and the integration of such valuable data. Third would be the Enabling of guest room technology, such as on-demand content and room features. Fourth would be Future-proofing networks and ensuring safety from hackers or malwares. Fifth would be beefing up security. Sixth would be energy conservation to save money on wastes and energy consumption.

Future proofing or building a more robust network infrastructure is the backbone and the most important part of any network model. It seems that newer buildings will have an advantage as they will have fiber optic installed as they are constructed which would be cheaper than replacing an entire existing copper network. This trend, will enable companies that have newer hotels to offer more services and meet the technological demand that their customers now expect.

This article brings us a closer sight into how the technology and digital advancement improve the restaurant operation. As social network has been more and more popular among millennials and babyboomers, social media has been used as one of the most important marketing approach. What's more, local pick-up and home delivery service have been rising up to a large extent. Digital technology is generally embraced by restaurant managers as most of them are willing to implement competitive and creative technology to their properties.