The cookie-cutter story! 🏨

I've been thinking for a while about writing something on Wi-Fi in the hospitality industry, especially since I’ve had the chance to work in this field. Some of you may know that I used to work in education, and I think schools have more thoughtful designs than hotels.

Let me explain!

On October 14, 2024, after many ups and downs, I finally took the CWDP (Certified Wireless Design Professional) exam. While studying, I came across some sections about designing Wi-Fi for hotels, and I believe there’s a major misconception about it.

Why do I think that? You might be wondering, “What’s in Gress’ brownies?” Well, sadly, nothing—this is just based on my experience. In the CWDP, they mention something along the lines of, “Hotel designs primarily focus on coverage.” While that’s true to an extent, this design approach is mostly relevant to hotels in the U.S., where buildings are often made of materials that allow decent coverage with just a few access points (APs), supporting both coverage and capacity.

But that’s not always the case, especially when you’re dealing with hotels in other parts of the world—specifically in Latin America and even some in Hawaii, based on my experience. Many of these hotels are built with materials that exceed what access points can handle, leading to significant attenuation or absorption. In some cases, even if the materials allow for a good design that could achieve both excellent coverage and capacity, it still doesn’t work out because of the brand standards.

As Ferney Muñoz once said in a course, “Sometimes less is more,” and in Wi-Fi, that couldn't be truer!

Unfortunately, in 100% of the designs I've come across in the past four years, they’ve all been cookie-cutter. Here’s what they typically include:

• One AP per room at -65 dBm.

• An AP in the hallway to boost coverage at -67 dBm.

• An AP in the elevator and at the elevator landing at -67 dBm.

• Full coverage in public areas at -67 dBm or -70 dBm.

• Functional roaming.

• Connection to the PMS (Property Management System) via a captive portal.

• Dynamic VLANs.

• Conference WLANs.

• Note: I used Hamina to try to show my point... but damn! It wouldn't even let me design badly!

Now, it makes sense to design this way because, let’s face it, Wi-Fi is more important than the food at a hotel these days. Guests might tolerate bad food, but never bad internet service. And while this is a good standard design my issue is the following:

• Hey, have you ever stumbled upon a hotel design that looks like it was created by counting the number of rooms? I have, and let me tell you, it's a real head-scratcher! (here is where the coverage issues lay)

• The problem with this kind of approach is that when you have the designer, he needs to keep things short and pass from one design to another, and the only focus or the only thing that they do is verify the coverage of a certain room or different type of room and that’s it. 

• Don’t consider that maybe too many access points would be a problem on the delivery.

• Or maybe do one AP every 2 rooms and just focus on coverage and not think about roaming and validate secondary signal and have a little more security that everything is going to work per designed.

  
  

All this is not the fault of the engineer designing this, it’s just that as I mentioned are too many projects, so the cookie-cutter makes sense. Well, even though the engineers behind these designs understand the technical aspects, due to time constraints, budgets, or just trying to complete their tasks, the full review of the post-site surveys is not on the list, just the coverage.

Talking about the survey review most of the brands have some kind of standard features used when optimizing the network—channels, roaming, etc.—are brand-specific:

• Data rates are limited.

• Channels are restricted to 20 MHz.

• Roaming configurations.

• Environment analysis is turned on.

• Band steering is enabled.

But that’s often as far as it goes. Just verify there’s enough coverage, that it works “well enough,” and then move on to the next project.

So, the issue here is how can you check just on the wireless controller without an actual floor plan with the actual locations. How can you view 1D if it is 3D?

Not much… It would require a little bit of extra work or getting the site survey analyzed completely and having that information!

So, what issues have I encountered?

• Roaming problems… too many sticky clients.

• Channel congestion, even on 5 GHz, let alone 2.4 GHz (CCI and ACI).

• A lot of noise.

• Coverage issues… yes, believe it or not.

• Lack of channel design (poor wireless controller).

• Density problems (conference rooms or auditoriums)

What can be done to improve this?

So, for the design, nothing much can be done, but for the post-survey, I think there are recommendations to consider.

For project managers who know a bit about Wi-Fi and ask the right questions:

• Were the heat maps reviewed?

• Were the radios on 2.4 GHz turned off?

• Was the design optimized for capacity?

• Was secondary coverage for roaming reviewed?

• Are the critical areas covered?

And for the engineers a quick reminder:

• Most important, verify your post-survey even if it’s a cookie cutter.

• Do a quick review of the channels and turn off the radio if appropriate.

• Don’t let everything to the Wireless Controller.

• Verify that Roaming WORKS!

• Confirm coverage and adjust power if necessary.

• Verify security and correct Vlan assigned (for dynamic Vlan configuration).

Let’s not forget less is more!

The one thing we can’t do much about is aesthetics. The worst case? An AP is placed behind a TV or under a desk.

The focus should always be on optimizing as much as possible and validating the design. But let’s face it, Wi-Fi isn’t always the focus when installing it, just when it fails.

These are my ideas! I look forward to hearing your comments and suggestions!

Lots of love! 😍❤️🌟

The Wifi Girl!