Hotels typically have two separate Internet connections in place, one for their back-office and one for the guest area. At Rome's Hilton Airport hotel, things work out much better with Swisscom managing all connectivity through one shared network, providing bandwidth dynamically when and where it is needed. Optimizing bandwidth usage throughout the property, Swisscom reduces the hotel's operational costs while increasing the effective speed for both guests and back-office users.

With 517 guest rooms, 21 meeting rooms and 70 back-office staff, Hilton Rome Airport has a strong demand for bandwidth in all hotel areas. In the meeting rooms, the greatest activity is during day-time while in the guest rooms, most bandwidth is consumed between 6 p.m. and midnight. As for its back-office, usage peaks several times during the office hours but also between 3 and 5 a.m. with the electronic closing of the previous day's business. Swisscom responds to the hotel's specific needs profile by prioritizing the right users at the right time, in accordance with specific rules set by the hotel. In addition, Swisscom is providing a redundancy solution for Hilton Rome Airport, ensuring a reliable connection even in the unlikely event that the primary circuit goes down. Swisscom's dynamic bandwidth management is now operational at the Hilton Rome Airport and presently rolled out to many other Swisscom partner hotels.

"Thanks to Swisscom's dynamic bandwidth management, we pay one network provider only and additionally gain the flexibility when bandwidth peaks beyond the foreseen availability", explains Katherine Schneider-King, General Manager at the Hilton Rome Airport. "Depending on our actual needs at a given moment, we can prioritize bandwidth for our conference business, the guest rooms or our back-office. Here we see the real added value of our partnership with Swisscom: Their expertise as a bandwidth operator allows them to propose a unique solution that a Pay-TV provider or non-operator backed party is unable to deliver. Swisscom is really acting as a partner and helping us to reduce costs in these economically difficult times."

To manage multiple data lines most intelligently through one converged network, Swisscom employs IBM Tivoli, an enterprise-grade network management toolset which it has adapted to the specific needs of the hotel industry. Through its access gateway, appropriate data routing and encryption technologies, all back-office data is systematically isolated from other circuits, excluding unauthorized access. Ensuring maximum service availability across all hotel areas, Swisscom's Network Operations Centre pro-actively monitors the Hilton Airport's network and circuits 24/7.

"As a network service provider for 2'000 partner locations in Europe and the United States, we have a unique mission to maximise the value of the IT infrastructure that we build and manage", comments Leo Brand, CEO of Swisscom Hospitality Services. "Over the past 12 months, we have greatly invested in our staff and our technology tools to drive efficiencies in the hotel's operations. Integrating the back-office into their guest-facing data network, we now offer our partner hotels a direct bottom-line benefit of IP convergence."

About Hoist Group

Hoist Group is the complete hospitality partner for hotels, health care institutions and public operations. With more than 20 years of proven hospitality experience, Hoist Group is the market leader in innovative High Speed Internet Access, conference services, TV & content solutions, PMS and back-office software as well as other guest-facing amenities. Many hotel chains, flagship independent hotels and public hospitals have entrusted their IT to Hoist Group. Based in Sweden, the company has offices in a total of 18 countries in the EMEA region. Learn more about the company at www.hoistgroup.com.