Technical Standards Key to Wireless at Marriott International

October 13, 2014

By J. Sharpe Smith

October 13, 2014 – How does Marriott International, a global travel company with 4,100 properties across 79 countries and 18 brands, keep everyone on the same page concerning wireless technology? According to Page Petry, Marriott’s Senior Vice President and Chief Information Technology Officer for The Americas, the answer is to develop technical standards.

Petry discusses how Marriott has evolved to keep up with wireless needs of its guests.

Petry expanded upon this and more during her keynote address at the AGL Conference and interview with AGL Media Group CEO Richard P. Biby, P.E., Oct. 9, in Dallas.

“While some say technical standards result in a tremendous amount of bureaucracy, I believe they give you tremendous freedom in defining business relationships, defining terms and conditions, and developing infrastructure designs,” Petry said.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the hospitality industry’s telephone and Internet communications were still completely wired and systems were built to last. Around 2005, Marriott decided that it needed to build its communications systems with the ability to change.

“Since [1999] everything has changed dramatically and we had to change too,” Petry said. “We needed to put an environment in place that allows us to take advantage of all the new technologies as they come at us. Otherwise, when new technology comes out, you have to do a major forklift in your buildings, resulting in a very lengthy, expensive process.”

Marriott fundamentally changed the way it finds new technologies for its hotels, developing four key components that formed a foundation for its program: technical standards, certified suppliers, bandwidth guidance and Wi-Fi in all guestrooms and public spaces. After developing its technical standards, Marriott invited around 200 of its Internet service providers to test their products and, if approved, receive certifications based on these standards. To date, approximately 21 providers have received certifications as a result of this process.

In the wireless world where the deployment of each generation of wireless is quickly followed by anticipation of the next, Petry notes the standardization process is not over. “How do you build this environment to be capable of change? How do you make it live? We are constantly revising the technical standards to meet the demands of the wireless equipment that people are bringing into our hotels,” she said.

Petry said the iPad introduction in 2010 “woke up our business leaders to what we needed to do with the infrastructure in our hotels.” It was a significant moment for Marriott IT when we realized that all access points inside the hotels would need to be realigned to handle the requirements of the tablet.

“The good news was that all of our manager teams were getting iPads and they easily bought into upgrading the infrastructure,” Petry said.

DAS Deployments Bring Need for Additional Standards

So far, DAS has been installed in Marriott’s properties in a number of ways. In some cases, the hotel invites each carrier independently to bring in its service, and other times Marriott uses an integrator to bring in the carriers. Additionally, a carrier may partner with Marriott on a DAS deployment and then bring other carriers with them. All three processes have their challenges, according to Petry.

“Each DAS deployment has been different. That is the challenge for us as a company. We don’t have DAS standards cleanly laid out yet,” she said. “We need to do a better job of articulating our requirements, so that the providers know what we are looking for and can deliver solutions that meet our needs.”

Petry expressed a sense of urgency for driving Marriott’s future wireless communications capabilities to meet the needs of millennials, who are estimated to account for 70 percent of room nights by 2018.

“We are spending a tremendous amount of time getting ready for the millennial traveler to get an idea of their needs,” she said. “It will be a massive change in our customer base – they are very mobile. They want to communicate with us before they check in, while they check in and to get online as quickly as possible. How do you move that customer through that process?”

A good relationship between the engineers in Marriott’s corporate office and their suppliers is essential to understand how wireless needs to change to keep up with new wireless demands.

“We have an architecture review board in place that comprises our engineers, our suppliers’ engineers and associates from our hotels. They get together and talk about communications problems. Our suppliers are coming to us with new solutions to problems and ways to do it better,” Petry said.

The most challenging wireless component for Marriott is keeping up with the bandwidth demand, which shows no signs of abating, according to Petry. But the size of hotel does not equate to bandwidth demand. A small hotel in Silicon Valley can have more bandwidth demand than a medium-size suburban property.

“Bandwidth demand growth is through the roof. We are seeing 40 percent growth year over year. Our owners and managers ask me when it is going to stop. I say never. At least I cannot foresee it,” Petry said.