30 June, 2015 -- The concept of Fiber To The Room (FTTR) for Hotels is based on the deployment of a local passive fibre optic network to the rooms or flats, to offer quadruple play services (phone, TV, data and WiFi) but with a drastic reduction in the total cost of ownership.
The fibre optic distribution to the room is done via passive splitters that eliminate intermediate technical rooms and network electronics required in copper/coaxial cabling deployments.
This simplification in design allows savings of more than 50% in rack and conduit space, power consumption, air conditioning and maintenance of electronic equipment. On the other hand, the use of fibre cabling protects the investment in the long term regardless of the adoption of new technological solutions. Attached is a picture of a splitter to be installed in the plants together with the distribution fibres. The small size of the splitter can be seen.
To support communications services over these passive networks, Aplicaziones proposes the use of Zhone's GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Networks) technology. The products based on this international standard (GPON) allow, through the installation of one device (ONT) per room, broadband connectivity in rooms at speeds higher than gigabit for all types of services. The solution is complemented by a high availability head-end (OLT equipment), which offers a high density of GPON ports, in such a way that an equipment that occupies one rack unit can provide service to more than 1,000 rooms. Zhone has more than 30 models of terminal units (ONT) that can be adapted to the different connectivity needs of each Hotel project. In the attached photo you can see the front of an ONT that serves 2 analog phone jacks, 4 gigabit jacks, 1 Digital TV jack and WiFi (n/ac) with internal antennas (also available with external antennas for higher gain):
With this ONT equipment, all the communications needs of a room are easily met. It is no longer necessary to deploy different networks for each service, even the latest generation WiFi ac services, so important for hotels nowadays, can be integrated to provide excellent coverage in all rooms.
In the picture below we can also see the front of an OLT (hub). The trunk fibres reach it (you can see the GPON ports on the right) and it also has conventional Gigabit Ethernet ports to connect the room services to the IP world (central ports). As its availability is very high (it is operator technology), normally one OLT is installed per hotel, although it is also possible to make redundant configurations for very large projects that require very high availability.
This new network architecture based on passive fibre optic networks means very significant savings (>30%) in the CAPEX of a project, as it makes it possible to reduce channelling, cabling, network electronics, technical rooms and other easements related to structured cabling. However, it is in the OPEX where the reductions are most significant (>80%), by significantly reducing the costs of energy, air conditioning, maintenance and network operation. This reduction in recurring costs that this solution allows can be strategic for improving the profitability of the hotel's operation in the medium and long term.
While the above considerations on savings are important, from our experience with the hotel sector we can highlight that a great advantage of FTTR solutions is that they serve as a tool for technological evolution in the operation of the business.
As is well known, the generalisation of fibre access (Fiber To The Home: FTTH) by Telecommunications Operators is allowing companies, in general, to migrate their information systems and telecommunications services to the cloud (private or public), with the consequent economic savings that this entails.
Given that the hotel sector is very cost-sensitive, many hotel chains are already migrating part of their services to the cloud. It is in this strategic line that FTTR solutions can be a good lever to centralise communications services at a very low cost. In this way, those chains that are already centralising billing systems, PMS, CRM, alarms, public address systems, etc., can, with this type of FTTR solutions, centralise all room services via IP. This can also be achieved with very low migration costs by being able to continue using the same devices that are currently used in the rooms, for example, analogue telephony telephones can be easily integrated by connecting them directly to the ONT, as the room equipment itself directly supports FXS (analogue) ports. The ONT then converts the voice conversations into SIP (Session Initation Protocol) calls that establish the necessary circuits via an IP voice PBX. This small detail can save the hotel tens of thousands of euros by not having to buy IP phones in the rooms to enjoy the benefits of IP Telephony (ToIP).
In this article we are not going to discuss in detail all the advantages of switching voice services to IP (increased reliability, centralised control, scalability, flexibility, etc.), but we would just like to highlight the savings that these solutions provide by eliminating a large part of the switchboards and leased lines in each hotel.
It is not necessarily mandatory to use FTTR solutions in order to deploy IP telephony in hotels, but we have found that their implementation makes it easier by significantly reducing the costs of deploying these services.
The ToIP example shows how this new passive fibre optic network architecture can be used to optimise a communications service in hotels. However, from our experience we recommend studying each project individually, so we normally make a study of the CAPEX and OPEX resulting from applying these new technologies to the needs of communications services that each Hotel chain has at each moment and in each Hotel project.
A summary of the services currently being provided in hotels through FTTR networks follows:
A correct assessment of the Hotel's needs allows the ROI of FTTR solutions to be much faster than that of conventional solutions (one communications network per system), achieving a significant reduction, depending on the Hotel, in CAPEX (>30%) and, more importantly, in OPEX (>70%).
Finally, we would like to point out that Aplicaziones follows the recommendations of the Hotel technology standards and more specifically of the "Fiber To The Room" (FTTR) working group of the Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG) association, in order to incorporate the appropriate design criteria and best practices in our projects to guarantee the success of our clients in the Hotel sector.
A presentation on the FTTR concept of the HTGN is available at this link.
Aplicaziones also makes available to its customers the design guide for the development of "Fiber To The Room" projects based on the HTGN standards.
Although this type of FTTR project is a good fit for large hotel projects (where most savings are made), it can be seen in this article that they are also viable for smaller hotels.