Internet Access: Broadband Signals Can Be Sent Over a Building’s TV Cables

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Small Business Solutions

Small accommodation providers now have a way to offer in-room broadband Internet access to all guests without the need for installing extra cabling or expensive upgrades to their telephone systems. By using the coaxial cabling they already have installed, guests can be connected using the existing TV antenna points.

This solution allows smaller guest establishments to meet a growing trend in a cost-effective way. High-speed Internet access is no longer a luxury item for guests or something to be found only in the largest hotels. While it was the requirement of only a few elite business travellers, the level of connectivity now expected by all types of guests is such that offering in-room HSIA is mandatory for all venues. Providing HSIA just within a business centre somewhere on the premises is no longer an acceptable solution.

Despite this market, smaller hotels, B&Bs and so forth have been slow to install in-room HSIA because of the costs involved in running new cabling and/or the out-dated state of their internal telephony infrastructure. Depending on the layout of the building its age and construction materials, this sort of renovation could run into many thousands of dollars and is therefore difficult to make a business case for.

The solution lies in some additional hardware. A box known as a “master bridge” connects a central broadband router to the building’s TV cabling. No additional wiring is necessary, as the device takes a broadband signal, together with a TV signal, and distributes it to each connected port.

The signal is then made available to each room a “slave ethernet bridge”. This splits the broadband and TV data and allows a guest’s computer to be plugged in via a standard ethernet cable. The slave units could be installed in each room as a default, or rented to guests individually. The television can, of course, continue to be used as normal at all times. The slave units have a built-in filter to eliminate ‘noise’ from the TV. In tandem with the master unit, they can also be configured to incorporate a billing solution. Over two dozen slaves can operate from the one master unit.

This sort of hardware will run at a cost of about $450 for a master bridge, with each slave unit then coming in at under $250. For accommodation venues with just a few rooms, this is much more economical than the cost of rewiring the premises with ethernet cables. Of course, the potential guests that are lost from not offering HSIA represent an even greater factor in the equation.