Guest WiFi complaints: the five causes we actually find in Irish hotels
"The WiFi is terrible" is the most common line in hotel reviews after the breakfast. The instinct is to ring the broadband provider and buy more speed. It almost never helps, because speed at the router was never the problem.
The five causes we actually find
- The building. Irish hotels are often old, stone, extended several times and full of steel. An access point in a corridor may not reach a bedroom two walls away. Coverage was designed on a plan, not measured in the rooms.
- Too few access points, or the wrong kind. One access point per floor was fine in 2012. A wedding of 200 guests with two devices each is not that world.
- Guest and staff traffic on the same network. Tills, the PMS, CCTV, guest phones and a conference room of laptops all on one flat network. When a guest streams, the till slows.
- No bandwidth management. One device downloading updates takes what it wants. Everyone else waits.
- Nobody owns the whole thing. The broadband is one supplier, the access points another, the cabling a third, and the hotel is the only party who sees the complaint.
What a proper review looks like
Not a speed test at reception. A review walks the building with a survey tool, measures signal in the rooms that complain, maps what is connected to what, and separates guest, staff and operational traffic. It produces a plan with costs, in language a general manager can put in front of an owner.
Most of the time the answer is more and better placed access points, a segmented network, and one party responsible for the result.
Where to go next
- Hotels and hospitality. Our approach to property technology as one environment.
- Hotel groups. The same problem multiplied by every property.
- Ask for a WiFi and network review
FAQ
Will a faster broadband line fix our hotel WiFi?
Rarely. Most complaints are caused by coverage inside the building, too few access points and guest traffic sharing a network with operational systems. A faster line does not reach the bedroom any better.
How many access points does a hotel need?
It depends on the building, not the room count. Stone walls and long corridors need far more than an open modern building. A site survey that measures signal in the rooms is the only reliable way to answer it.
Should guest WiFi be separate from the hotel's own systems?
Yes. Guest traffic should be on its own segment, isolated from tills, the PMS, CCTV and back office. This protects the operation and improves both performance and security.