Infrastructure › By Industry › Hospitality

Vertical · Hotels · Resorts · Conference · Independent Inns

Guest Wi-Fi is your review score.

In hospitality, the network IS the product review. Slow guest Wi-Fi shows up in TripAdvisor within a week. Netcom designs hotel networks that handle room density, event-space bandwidth bursts, and PMS integration — while keeping the back-of-house LAN PCI-scoped and securely separate.

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PMS

native integration — Opera, Mews, Cloudbeds, Protel for room authentication

500+ rooms

designed for Wi-Fi 6E density with wall-plate and ceiling AP options

Event-burst

bandwidth topologies for ballrooms and conference centers on demand

Hospitality · Mid-Market Reference

Hospitality reference architecture: three overlapping networks on one cable plant — Guest VLAN (rooms, corridors, outdoor), PCI-scoped Back-of-House VRF (PMS, POS, housekeeping, IoT), and Event VLAN with on-demand burst — all unified through Aruba CX 8325 VSX core with HTNG-integrated PMS captive portal

Hospitality-specific pain

Three networks pretending to be one.

A hotel isn't one network — it's at least three with very different requirements sharing the same building. Guest Wi-Fi needs throughput, handoff quality, and captive-portal integration with the PMS. Back-of-house (housekeeping tablets, POS, reservations) needs security, PCI scope isolation, and uptime. Event spaces need elastic bandwidth that bursts for a keynote and returns to baseline afterward.

On top of that: in-room entertainment streaming, voice-over-Wi-Fi for staff, BLE for indoor wayfinding, Chromecast/Apple TV multicast for guest casting, and IoT for smart locks and energy management. When any one of these fails visibly to a guest, it shows up as a two-star review.

Netcom designs hospitality networks as an explicit multi-SSID, multi-VLAN, multi-policy architecture — not a single "hotel network" with everything crammed together. Purpose-built hospitality APs in rooms where density and discreet mounting matter. PMS integration so the guest password is the confirmation number. Dedicated event-space VLANs with on-demand bandwidth shaping. And cellular failover at every property so the weather-related WAN outage doesn't show up at check-in.

Reference Architecture

Three networks. One physical cable plant.

Sized for a full-service hotel (150–500 rooms with event space). Scales down for boutique inns and up for resort-scale properties.

Full-service hotel architecture with AP-505H wall-plate in guest rooms, AP-635 Wi-Fi 6E in public spaces, AP-655 in ballrooms with AirMatch event-burst, FortiGate 200F east-west inspection on BOH, and independent Cradlepoint E3000 cellular failover for FOH and BOH WANs

Hospitality · full-service hotel · 150–500 rooms · event space · 24/7 staffing

Aruba Central + AP-635 / AP-505H · PMS-integrated captive portal · segmented back-of-house

Aruba AP-505H wall-plate units in every guest room (where AC runs), AP-635 ceiling units in corridors, ballrooms, and public spaces. Aruba ClearPass delivers the captive portal and integrates directly with Opera / Mews / Cloudbeds via HTNG so the guest's confirmation number is the Wi-Fi password. PCI-scoped back-of-house on a dedicated VRF with FortiGate inspection. Event spaces get dedicated VLANs with on-demand bandwidth allocation via Aruba AirMatch. Cradlepoint E3000 at each property provides cellular failover on the front-of-house and back-of-house WANs independently.

Role	Vendor & Model	Notes	Network segment
In-room AP (wall-plate)	Aruba AP-505H	Discreet · 4 wired pass-through ports · per-room isolation	Guest VLAN
Corridor / public AP	Aruba AP-635 (Wi-Fi 6E)	Tri-band · high handoff quality for guests with phones	Guest VLAN
Ballroom / event AP	Aruba AP-655 + AirMatch	Dense-client · event-burst bandwidth allocation	Event VLAN
Outdoor / pool / patio	Aruba AP-577	IP67 · high-temp tolerant · guest coverage	Guest VLAN
Access switching	Aruba CX 6300M-48G-PoE4+	60W PoE for AP + IP camera + electronic locks	All VLANs
Property core	Aruba CX 8325 (or 6405 chassis)	VSX · VRF separation front-of-house / back-of-house	All VLANs
Back-of-house security	Fortinet FortiGate 200F	PCI-scoped · east-west inspection · PMS protocol-aware	BOH + PMS
PMS integration	Aruba ClearPass + HTNG	Guest authentication via Opera / Mews / Cloudbeds	Guest captive portal
Cellular failover	Cradlepoint E3000	Dual-SIM · FOH and BOH WAN independent failover	All WAN
Multicast / casting	Aruba AirGroup / mDNS gateway	Per-room Chromecast / Apple TV discovery scoped	Guest VLAN
Management	Aruba Central cloud	Multi-property view · AIOps · brand compliance reports	—

Case Stories

Composite examples from hospitality engagements.

Illustrative properties drawn from real deployment patterns. Names are fictional; scope, vendors, and outcomes reflect actual Netcom work.

Mid-scale Hotel Group · 14 properties

Eastbrook Hotels & Resorts · Wi-Fi + PMS refresh

14 properties on four different Wi-Fi vendors, three different PMS systems, declining connectivity-related review scores. Netcom standardized on Aruba AP-505H in rooms + AP-635 public spaces with HTNG-compliant PMS integration for Opera and Cloudbeds. PMS integration isn't plug-and-play: the Opera instance at two franchise properties was on an older version that didn't support HTNG 2.11; had to coordinate with the brand's corporate IT for a PMS upgrade before Wi-Fi integration could go live. Four months of waiting on a Marriott-level approval chain for a single upgrade ticket.

properties on uniform
Wi-Fi + PMS standard

Boutique Inn Collection · 6 properties

Sandstone Inn Collection · captive portal + cellular backup

Six historic properties with cable-plant restrictions — no ceiling tile removal allowed in 1920s architecture, no visible AP mounts in period guest rooms. Netcom delivered Aruba AP-505H wall-plate units in rooms (tucked into existing outlet boxes), conduit-routed fiber to corridor APs, branded captive portal, Cradlepoint S700 failover. One property required a full redesign: a 1907 building's plaster walls carried so much metal lath that Wi-Fi couldn't penetrate between rooms. Ended up specifying an AP in every single room with careful channel planning instead of one-per-two-rooms — +$28K in hardware the ownership accepted when Ekahau validation made it undeniable.

<60 s

cellular failover
transparent to guests

Conference Center · Event Venue

Crystal Harbor Conference Center · event-burst bandwidth

Standalone conference center hosting 50-5,000-attendee events with bandwidth needs varying by an order of magnitude day to day. Netcom delivered Aruba AP-655 in ballrooms with AirMatch, dual-ISP SD-WAN with event-day capacity bursting, dedicated event-IT VLAN. First large event exposed a design gap: our initial DHCP scope sized for 2,500 concurrent clients got saturated in the first 90 minutes of a 4,200-attendee keynote. Moved to a larger scope with shorter lease times and added a second scope for overflow; ran the last six months without incident. Lesson baked into the reference design for future conference venues.

5,000

peak concurrent
event attendees served

Guest Wi-Fi is your review score.

Three networks pretending to be one.

The standards that matter when guests check in.

Three networks. One physical cable plant.

Aruba Central + AP-635 / AP-505H · PMS-integrated captive portal · segmented back-of-house

Composite examples from hospitality engagements.

Eastbrook Hotels & Resorts · Wi-Fi + PMS refresh

Sandstone Inn Collection · captive portal + cellular backup

Crystal Harbor Conference Center · event-burst bandwidth

Ready to raise the Wi-Fi review score?

Guest Wi-Fi is your review score.

Three networks pretending to be one.

The standards that matter when guests check in.

Three networks. One physical cable plant.

Aruba Central + AP-635 / AP-505H · PMS-integrated captive portal · segmented back-of-house

Composite examples from hospitality engagements.

Eastbrook Hotels & Resorts · Wi-Fi + PMS refresh

Sandstone Inn Collection · captive portal + cellular backup

Crystal Harbor Conference Center · event-burst bandwidth

Pillars that matter most for hospitality

Wireless

SD-WAN & WAN Edge

Security & Firewall

Ready to raise the Wi-Fi review score?