Colubris Networks announced today that i-Hotel International, a Montreal, Canada-based organization, has deployed Colubris’ secure wireless LAN (WLAN) products to provide guest Internet access in hotel lobbies, meeting rooms, restaurants, golf courses and other sites for over 7,500 hotel rooms across 70 properties in Canada. Based on a wireless LAN system designed specifically for the hospitality industry, the solution combines Colubris’ secure wireless Access Points with i-Hotel’s Wireless Internet Management System to create a solution that is cost effective, easy to use, and that scales from small to large, multi-site hospitality property deployments.
“We plan to use our hotel-wide, high speed wireless network at the Best Western Europa to provide multiple services to our customers,” said Denis Beauchamp, general manager, Best Western Europa in Montreal, Quebec. “Today, our customers have free wireless access anywhere in the hotel. Within the month, they will be able to use their room key card as a mode of payment anywhere in the hotel. Customer purchase information will be captured and sent wirelessly to the Front Desk for billing. Within the year, we will also deploy IP telephony phones for customers. All these services – guest Internet access, key card payment and telephone – will run over the same Colubris/i-Hotel wireless network. Our wireless network allows us to provide more services for customers at very little additional capital costs.”
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Colubris, a long-time market leader in delivering WLAN solutions to the hospitality industry, has a greater than 30% share of the properties deployed to date. In a report released earlier this month by In-Stat/MDR, a technology and marketing research firm, analysts expect the number of hotel properties offering broadband services to triple to 26,823 by 2008.
i-Hotel International Inc., one of Canada’s fastest growing companies with 71 wireless installations across four Canadian Provinces, has created a wireless internet management software product specifically designed for the hospitality industry. The system, which integrates the Colubris Access Point and Access Controller products, provides a total solution for hospitality sites that own and operate their own WLAN guest access services. In January 2004, Best Western, the world’s largest hotel chain, announced that all of its 2,300 properties in North America and the Caribbean will offer high speed Internet access by September 2004.
About Colubris Products
Colubris offers a family of centrally managed intelligent 802.11 a/b/g access devices and access controller platforms that provide comprehensive next generation WLAN features, including highly secure VPN services, industry leading Voice-over-Wi-Fi support, and the industry’s first multi-service Virtual Access Point (AP) capability. With Virtual AP, a single Colubris WLAN access device can deliver up to 16 different WLAN services, each with independently configured security and Quality of Service (QoS) profiles.
Customers leverage Virtual AP capabilities to enable migration from legacy to emerging Wi-Fi standard client devices. Virtual AP capabilities are also required to converge high quality voice, guest access and secure data services onto a single, cost-effectively shared Wi-Fi network infrastructure. Large-scale enterprise deployments are further enabled with the Colubris Networks Management System (CNMS) which centrally manages and controls the devices and policies governing large, highly distributed wireless LAN deployments.
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About i-Hotel International, Inc.
Designed by hotel people for hotel people, i-Hotel International Inc. has spent the last 2 years developing a technologically advanced wireless internet management system tailored to the hospitality industry. Commercialized throughout North-America directly or via our preferred distributors, our solution is rapidly becoming the industry’s standard. The reason? Simply because our business model isn’t based on profit sharing with our clients, credit card access; long-term contracts or other demanding functions. Instead, its core foundation is based on developing a true partnership with our clients whereby they offer a safe & easy internet experience to their valued guests.
About Colubris Networks
Colubris Networks is a global provider of intelligent wireless LAN access equipment and management systems for service providers and enterprises. The company’s award-winning products deliver seamless, secure access to broadband networks while integrating into existing network infrastructure, security and management systems. Colubris Networks’ equipment is deployed by more than 500 organizations worldwide.
