Another update, a newer version, this is hardly earth-shattering news. Updates are released all the time, so what makes Wi-Fi 7 so different? And more importantly what does it mean for hospitality?

Traveling is great when things go according to plan, but can be an absolute nightmare when things go wrong. Just one small glitch can set off a whole chain reaction that creates a very negative travel experience. Take for example the recent CrowdStrike upgrade that impacted Microsoft and grounded thousands of flights.

Now while the impacts of this particular example are probably at the extreme of what could go wrong, it highlights just how interconnected everything is in hospitality IT systems.

The impact of robust, and not so robust networks

At hotels and resorts, systems are increasingly being connected and automated to create efficiencies. Many of these new internet of things (IoT) technologies communicate via Wi-Fi rather than ethernet. Typically, it’s much easier to set up or extend a Wi-Fi network than to add to a wired system on a large premises. Simply adding new switches to a legacy system may be seen as the most cost-effective solution in the short term, but over time incompatibility issues start to become more problematic.

This is particularly true when it comes to the devices that guests use and the impact of outdated legacy network systems. An example of this is a resort that operates on Wi-Fi 4 which is 15 years old. Wi-Fi 4 may have been the first technology to support multiple input and output technology but its speed is a quarter of what Wi-Fi 6 can deliver.

Most guests have devices that are less than two years old. While newer Wi-Fi standards may be backwards compatible – meaning that it can to connect to Wi-Fi 5, 4 or even 3 – it doesn’t like it. Why settle for a speed of 150 Mbps when you have capabilities of 600 Mbps and more? Devices with Wi-Fi  6 or 7 will therefore constantly be searching for a better connection. The result is dropped signals and intermittent connectivity, which makes for a terrible guest experience!

This goes against what hotels are trying to achieve when they add automation to systems. Adding AI monitoring to create efficiencies won’t be very effective if the network can’t support the volume of data. Especially if many of these monitoring systems are using Wi-Fi.

What makes Wi-Fi 7 better?

Wi-Fi 7 was designed to overcome shortcomings in previous Wi-Fi standards. Better range and speed are the obvious advantages, but Wi-Fi 7 is also helping to overcome dead zones in Wi-Fi coverage by supporting beamforming technology and having the bandwidth to support AI applications. This results in more consistent data being fed into monitoring systems which make for better management of systems supported by AI. So, more data and better data – that’s what Wi-Fi 7 can deliver to hotels looking to integrate AI into their operations.

This is really just the start. Given the pace at which AI is evolving and how entrenched it’s becoming in operations, hospitality needs to prepare for what’s coming next. Wearable devices, virtual and augmented reality experiences may well become an expectation with guests. If hotels don’t have the networks to support these technologies, guests will simply choose to stay at alternate properties that do.

With this in mind, hospitality as an industry needs to look at technology as a way to differentiate themselves from competitors. This translates into having the right foundations in place to support technology advancements. Wi-Fi 7 is going to be the technology behind new deployments in the next four to five years, and in hospitality especially, will have a major impact.

This is the third in a series of articles on the intersection of Wi-Fi 7 and AI in hospitality. Read more on the subject in: Part 1 and Part 2