Story · Hospitality · Wi-Fi
A marina, a hotel, a pool and a restaurant, ready for the Fourth of July
The complex ran on a patchwork of consumer access points added one crisis at a time. It worked in April. It fell over every holiday weekend, when the docks, the pool deck and the restaurant patio filled with a thousand phones at once.
The situation
Guests could not get online in their rooms. Servers on the patio could not run cards because the point-of-sale tablets kept dropping off the network. The marina office and the hotel front desk were on different networks that did not talk to each other, so a boat slip rental and a room booking for the same family were two separate conversations.
Every previous fix had been another access point bolted to a wall. By the time they called us, there were more than a dozen, on overlapping channels, interfering with each other more than they helped.
What we did
We walked the property with a survey tool on a busy Saturday, not a quiet weekday, because the problem only existed with a crowd. That gave us a map of where the signal actually reached and where a thousand devices would fight for it.
The design replaced the patchwork with one managed wireless network: outdoor-rated access points on the docks and pool deck, indoor units in the hotel corridors and restaurant, all on one controller so a guest's phone hands off cleanly from the room to the patio to the boat. Guest, staff and point-of-sale traffic were separated so a full pool deck could not knock out card processing.
Installation was scheduled backwards from the holiday. Cabling went in during the week, access points went live in stages, and we were on site the first busy weekend to watch it under load.
"You do not design a marina network for a Tuesday in April. You design it for the Fourth of July at four in the afternoon."
How the engineering team puts itWhat changed
ResolvedGuests get online. Cards run on the patio. The front desk and the marina office share one system. The owner stopped hearing about Wi-Fi, which is the only review a network ever gets.
The guide behind this story
ChecklistThe office IT relocation checklist
Everything that has to happen, in order, from the day the lease is signed to the first Monday in the new building. The list we use on every move.
Read the guideOrder the internet circuit the week the lease is signed. Carriers take six to twelve weeks. Nothing else on a move fails as often.
The relocation checklist Did you knowA backup that has never been restored is a hope, not a plan. Ask for the date of the last tested restore.
What to actually testQuestions people ask about this
How do you size Wi-Fi for a crowd that only shows up a few weekends a year?
You survey during the crowd, not around it, and you design for the peak. The cost difference between a network that survives a holiday and one that does not is mostly planning, not hardware.
Can guest and staff networks share the same hardware safely?
Yes. Modern access points carry several separate networks at once. Guests never see the point-of-sale traffic, and a busy guest network cannot starve the staff one.
"As always, efficient, non-intrusive and complete!"
Kurt, concrete supplierMore from the survey wall- A technician who knows your setup takes every request. Not a dispatcher, not a queue.
- Every closed ticket is surveyed and a partner reads every response.
- 99.5% of surveys come back positive.
- Family-owned since 2005. 21 years in the same corner of Wisconsin, not going anywhere.
"Thanks for the hard work. I was kept informed with regular updates until the concern was resolved."
Jeff, insurance brokerageRunning a seasonal business?
Tell us when your busy season starts. We plan backwards from that date.
Talk to a partnerTalk to a partner, not a sales script.
Tell us what is going on. A partner will call you back the same business day, look at what you have, and tell you honestly whether we are the right fit. No pricing pressure, no pitch deck.