Case Study: Upgrading Hotel Wi-Fi & Mission-Critical Infrastructure

A 135-room city-centre hotel in Belfast needed to replace its existing Wi-Fi and modernise its guest technology as part of a conversion to an international hotel brand. The challenge extended far beyond installing new access points: the hotel remained open throughout the work, construction activity was already under way, and the completed infrastructure had to pass the incoming brand’s formal technical audit.

Connected Hospitality designed and deployed the complete network, Wi-Fi and guest-entertainment solution across two controlled phases. The project included approximately 150 Cisco Meraki access points, switching and firewalls, selective cabling, 145 televisions with secure guest casting, PMS-based Wi-Fi authentication, network segmentation and UPS protection in every communications cabinet.

The challenge: replacing inconsistent Wi-Fi without closing the hotel

The previous wireless design used approximately one access point for every three guestrooms. Coverage was inconsistent, and the hotel did not have the managed support model required for a dependable guest service. The approaching brand conversion introduced a firm compliance requirement and a clear deadline, but the property could not stop welcoming guests while its network was rebuilt.

The project also had to accommodate reception, bar, restaurant, lounge, suites, terraces and conference areas, each with different capacity and roaming requirements. Existing services—including card payments, EPOS terminals, music systems, staff devices and the property-management environment—needed to be migrated onto the new network securely and kept operational throughout the change.

Most of the existing structured cabling could be reused, limiting disruption and avoiding unnecessary cost. Additional cable runs were installed where the design identified coverage or capacity gaps. This kept the investment focused on what the building and brand standard actually required.

Designing for every room, not every third room

Connected Hospitality completed the predictive wireless design, physical survey, network architecture and Bill of Materials before deployment. The design placed one Cisco Meraki MR36H wallplate access point in each of the 135 guestrooms. This provided room-level Wi-Fi while also making managed wired connectivity available for supported in-room equipment.

More than ten Meraki MR56 high-capacity access points were deployed across front-of-house and higher-demand spaces. Reception, food and beverage areas, the lounge, terraces and conference facilities were treated according to their expected client density and usage rather than as extensions of the guestroom design.

Bandwidth management limited each guest to 20 Mbps. This was not intended to make the connection appear slower; it protected fairness and consistency by preventing a small number of devices from consuming disproportionate capacity. The objective was a predictable guest experience across the occupied hotel, including during busy periods.

The design, submissions and validation were managed against the incoming brand’s prescribed network requirements. Post-installation testing confirmed that every guestroom met the required coverage target, with surveyed user areas achieving at least −65 dBm received signal strength and 30 dB signal-to-noise ratio. The solution was subsequently accepted through the brand’s formal audit process.

A phased deployment inside a trading hotel

The installation was delivered in two phases of approximately two weeks each. Guestrooms were released to the engineering team in controlled batches between checkout and the next arrival, requiring daily coordination with housekeeping, maintenance, hotel management and the construction team.

Rooms were brought onto the new network progressively. Staged cutovers allowed completed areas to become operational without waiting for the whole property, while careful sequencing kept the existing service available in areas that had not yet migrated.

The hotel remained open with guests in residence throughout the works. Payment processing, PMS access and guest services remained available during migration, with disruption kept to the narrow installation windows agreed with the operational teams. This live-environment coordination was as important as the technical design: even the best network would have been a failed project if it interfered with arrivals, room turnaround or revenue-generating services.

Securing the hotel’s wider operational network

The project incorporated new firewalls and network switching rather than treating Wi-Fi as an isolated overlay. Legacy unmanaged equipment was removed, secure remote management was introduced and UPS protection was installed in every communications cabinet.

Guest, staff, payment, television, casting, music and operational services were separated through VLANs and firewall policies. Existing card and EPOS terminals were migrated onto the new infrastructure, with payment traffic isolated to support the hotel’s PCI DSS obligations and reduce unnecessary exposure between systems.

The resulting architecture gave each service the connectivity it needed without placing unrelated devices into one broad network. This matters in hospitality because a property can contain hundreds of endpoints supplied by multiple vendors, all with different security, support and availability requirements. Our network and connectivity services take this complete-infrastructure approach rather than treating guest Wi-Fi as a standalone product.

Secure casting and branded in-room television

Connected Hospitality also deployed 145 televisions with the Televes ArantiaCast hospitality casting platform. Guests could cast supported content from their own phones and tablets to the television assigned to their room without entering personal streaming credentials into the hotel TV.

The television and casting experience was branded for the incoming hotel brand. Each casting session was isolated to the correct room, and paired devices and session information were cleared automatically at checkout. These controls provided a privacy-led alternative to shared smart-TV logins and helped the hotel meet its data-protection responsibilities.

The brand-mandated PMS was used to authenticate guest Wi-Fi through surname and room number. This joined the arrival experience to the hotel’s operational platform while avoiding the need to distribute static shared passwords. Other PMS functions remained outside the scope, keeping the integration focused and supportable.

Following completion and audit acceptance, the environment was transitioned into the agreed managed-support arrangement. The hotel’s management team was pleased with both the technical result and the way the work had been delivered around daily operations.

The relationship built during the project led the operator to ask Connected Hospitality to deliver a comparable solution for another new hotel opening in the same area. That repeat appointment was the clearest indication that the project had achieved more than a compliance pass: it had created confidence in the design, deployment and delivery team.

The improvement did not come from changing the access-point badge alone. It came from designing the RF environment, placing access points around rooms and user density, validating the finished coverage, upgrading the network beneath the Wi-Fi, segmenting operational services and coordinating the installation with the people running the hotel.

That is also why a successful hotel Wi-Fi upgrade cannot be assessed only by an internet speed test. Coverage, signal quality, capacity, roaming, authentication, switching, security, power and support all contribute to the guest experience. Our article on why many Wi-Fi upgrades fail to improve Wi-Fi explores this wider point.