Getting up to speed EVENT BANDWIDTH PREPARED BY RUTH A. HILL

Transcription

1 Getting up to speed EVENT BANDWIDTH PREPARED BY RUTH A. HILL

2 The annual meeting is off to a great start. Good attendance, exhibit floor is humming, and the schedule is moving forward nicely. It s now time for the first general session s keynote presentation. The highly publicized and anticipated presenter moves to the podium to begin a live online demonstration to hundreds of attendees in her audience, most of whom carry at least one mobile Internet device. All goes well until she announces a white paper link to the assembly and everyone begins downloading at once. The speed on a sea of mobile devices and the onstage apparatus goes from 60 to zero almost instantly. Why did this happen and how could it have been avoided? There are many people in the planning process who play a role including the event organizer, the hotel sales and service staffs, and the hotel tech group. Scenarios like this one often occur when there is inadequate communication about configuration of Internet services for the event. At the same time managers were talking about room setups, food and beverage choices, and parking spaces, they should also have talked about what has become an essential event service, said Doug Rice, executive vice president & CEO of Hotel Technology Next Generation. That scenario is likely caused by a bandwidth problem, said Rice. In a hotel venue, you can put aside a percentage of Internet bandwidth available in the property for the hotel for management of its functions, and you can allocate other bandwidth to the day s meetings. In this scenario, the attendees needed a lot and some should have been reserved just for the presenter. The big problem in today s event management world, say Rice and other industry pros, is that people are not talking about the bandwidth issue primarily because they don t know about it, don t understand it or fear its complexity. Yet bandwidth configuration has become just as important to achieving an event s goals and objectives as compelling content, well presented and tasty food, adequate meeting space, and comfortable guest rooms. There is at present little fluency with bandwidth terminology like there is for room setups. Everyone 1 understands what is meant by cabaret, theater, and classroom style. But familiarity with technology terminology is more limited. Rice said event planners, hoteliers, and technology staffs all have a role to play in providing events with what some call the fourth utility which is right up there with running water, lights, and HVAC. Poorly managed event bandwidth requirements by attendees, presenters, exhibitors, and venue managers can and do impact and even sabotage otherwise carefully planned events with disturbing frequency. Event planners and venue managers are getting vocal complaints and feedback when Internet access fails to meet the needs and expectations of attendees. Unsatisfactory Internet experiences are also is causing groups to avoid rebooking venues where they ve had a bad experience. Today Internet connectivity affects the entire industry. Many of today s array of personal mobile devices like tablet computers and pertinent technologies weren t around three years ago. Consumers have adopted the new tools into their lives and work at an amazing pace, and they bring with them as many as two or three datahungry devices to events. Add to this phenomenon the movement towards webcasting, streaming video, remote presentations, conference apps, social media, gamification and more to the event scene and you have a huge and expanding demand for bandwidth. Most event industry people agree it s time to start the conversation about bandwidth.

3 Bandwidth Defined In plain English, bandwidth refers to the maximum data transfer rate capability of a network or Internet connection. It is the measure of how much data can flow through a connection in a given amount of time. The more demand for data flow, the more the flow speed is affected and maybe even blocked. Lots of data going through a narrow pipe takes longer than the same amount of data flowing through a broader one. The number of people at an event and the number of things they are doing online in both public spaces and guest rooms checking , downloading applications and streaming videos, communicating on social media sites, and more affect online access and speed of connectivity throughout a venue. Add to attendee data demand that of a presenter s needs, those of a hotel or other venue s management where the event is happening such as check-ins and housing registration, and exhibitor usage on the show floor. It s what the telecommunications industry refers to as the data tsunami with bandwidth requirements doubling each year or approximately 30-fold between 2010 and 2015, said Rice. Hotels struggle to meet the expectation that guest-room Internet will be as fast as residential service because that s what guests want. Both the amount of bandwidth hoteliers have to buy, and the sophistication of network management tools they need to manage intelligently, have grown rapidly. How bandwidth affects the event and meetings industry For years, event organizers have selected sites based on rates, space and availability for desired dates. Now it is often advisable and maybe necessary to add a fourth site selection consideration to the list: bandwidth capability. But how much is enough? The demand for Wi-Fi at events is growing by high double-digit numbers each year, said Corbin Ball, meetings technology expert and consultant. Tablet computers, on average, use 400% more bandwidth than other mobile devices and are becoming the fastest adopted technology hardware ever. Attendees have multiple mobile devices and expect the same broadband experience they receive at home and office even 2 though there many be thousands of people trying to access the Wi-Fi signal simultaneously. Ball said technology exists to provide what users demand, but equipment and bandwidth are expensive. So many meeting and event venues are far behind in keeping up with demand. Anne Roth, CMP, Key Account Director for IHG, InterContinental Hotels Group, said planners do say that capacity problems create unsatisfactory experiences for attendees at their events. For so long, it s been do you have wireless during the site selection process, said Roth. Now we are beginning to understand that the question needs to be more specific, asking about dedicated bandwidth and capacities. On the front end Meeting Planners and Hoteliers need to clarify the bandwidth capacities and whether to order dedicated bandwidth. This will become the norm as wireless connectivity is one of the major causes of dissatisfaction for hotel travelers and meeting attendees. Mike Dominquez, senior vice president of sales for MGM Resorts International, said industry conversation and understanding about bandwidth needs to include investment costs. He compared bandwidth data traffic to that of highway vehicular traffic. If you have a ten-lane highway, and you put 100 vehicles on it, you d be okay, said Dominguez. But if you added 10,000 cars on that highway, you d need to either expand the highway at great expense, or get some cars off it. It s the same with bandwidth. Expanding the pipe which compares to that highway costs a lot and venues must get a return on their investment. This is what everyone concerned with the event booking process needs to understand. MGM s answer to burgeoning pipe needs is a $14 million expansion in what Dominguez calls its 30-lane highway a technology platform for all its 13 Las Vegas resorts that can be expanded as needed. He said the project gives his company the ability to fulfill unlimited bandwidth needs. If I renovate a hotel, my rates are going to go up because I need the ROI. With expansion of bandwidth capabilities, it s the same principal. But because

4 it s unseen, some people have the expectation that it should be free. The industry needs to have a business dialogue that brings understanding about this issue. What event partners need to know and when they should know it Starting the bandwidth conversation can be a challenge for both event planners and their hotel or other venue partners. Most people plead low or minimal technical knowledge. So why not just hand the bandwidth issue off to the techies? The bandwidth issue touches every single aspect of our business sales, exhibitors, attendees, venues everyone is impacted, said Michael Owen, managing partner of EventGenuity. The problem is many people don t know how to have the conversation. Planners and hoteliers need to learn enough to discuss bandwidth needs because it is every bit as important now to success as all the traditional considerations like F&B, space and rates. Planners need to be prepared to take responsibility for fulfilling attendee expectations regarding bandwidth, he continued. Typically they know an event s attendance and budget history, space needs, food and beverage needs and so on, and bandwidth needs are now every bit as important. Technology is changing so fast, it has become mandatory most of the time. Capturing and reporting an event s technology needs and usage in a post-event audit is every bit as important now as room pickup and budget fulfillment, Owen added. Steve Enselein, vice president catering & convention services for Hyatt Hotels Americas, agrees with Owen. Most hoteliers in sales and convention services are not up to speed on this topic any more than planners are, he said. We need to coordinate with on-site tech partners and AV companies that work inside our hotels. These people are very knowledgeable about Internet needs and they can assist with training the hotel staff to ask planners the right questions about bandwidth needs, just as they ask questions about meeting and sleeping room requirements, he said. Establishing bandwidth event needs Planners should come to the site selection process 3 knowing what level of use their attendees will need, how many devices they will carry, what kinds of sessions the event will have and what needs presenters will have. They need to have event history on Internet usage just as they have history on room pickup. Hopefully this conversation happens early during the buying process, Enselein continued. John Rissi, senior vice president of operations for PSAV Presentation Services, and leader of the APEX (Accepted Practices Exchange, an initiative of the Convention Industry Council) Bandwidth and Connectivity Workgroup, said planners might not have much to consider in the way of bandwidth requirements if all their attendees are going to do is check . But the younger generation in particular are requiring a lot of bandwidth for their mobile Internet devices. If you have 500 young event attendees in their 20s on mobile devices, they are using a lot of bandwidth - for gaming, video streaming and other functions. If they are in a hotel, they are looking for the group s data pool because they prefer not to use their own data plan, he continued. Besides attendee bandwidth demands and presenters needs, there s the exhibit hall to consider. Vendors often bring in their own networks to the exhibit floor, and if you get too many hot spots, that can interfere with wireless access points and crash networks. So this is definitely a key area for planners to consider. They need to have conversations with exhibitors about bandwidth needs, and maybe they don t allow individual hot spots on the exhibit floor. Who pays for a group s bandwidth needs? Meeting rapidly increasing demands for satisfactory Internet connectivity at events is expensive and like everything else that goes into a successful event, it costs somebody. Many event planners continue to expect free Wi-Fi without understanding about what they are asking, said Rissi. Planners are in a Starbucks mindset, said Rissi, because they are thinking they should be able to access the Internet for and other functions for free, just as they do at the coffee shop. But what if everyone showed up at Starbucks for a meeting? What kind of

5 experience would they have? Sure it s free there, but the capacity is useless for meetings purposes. What we are trying to do is change the conversation away from do you have Wi-Fi to these are my bandwidth needs. So who gets the tab for escalating event bandwidth demands? Many planners may think it belongs to the venue. Owners and managers of hotels and other event sites face a significant business dilemma in getting their venues up to speed in order to remain competitive. It s an ongoing investment need for venues that host events, Rissi added, and it requires frequent updates in infrastructure at a minimum of every five years. Hoteliers are business people and are looking for ROI. So somebody must pay for a more robust bandwidth capacity, and it may get passed on to group sponsors via markups similar to those on F&B and other event items. Venues are challenged to invest in more capability when they need it, said Owen. But the question for them is how and when do they invest if they think their clients are not quite to the need point yet. When there is doubt, the conversation today sometimes moves to tiered bandwidth service he said. I ve noticed some hotels may charge guests $12 a night for Internet access, but another includes it for free. Now there are tiered sections. If all you want is access you can probably have it for free, but more speed costs another couple of dollars, and the next tier say to download a movie is more again. In the case of event planning, this gets into the matter of dedicated and shared services, another point for negotiation. It s not just a tech issue or a financial issue, but a content delivery issue, Owen continued. Everyone needs to understand this. If you work hard to deliver event content and experiences, what good is it to allow a lack of bandwidth to sabotage or impact it? Many hotels expect that wireless data services from the mobile carriers will meet their bandwidth need, but the mobile carriers themselves know they are rapidly running out of radio spectrum Rice said. As a result, the carriers are actively offloading cellular traffic onto Wi-Fi networks, especially in high-traffic locations 4 like hotels. In some particularly congested locations like New York and San Francisco, mobile carriers have gone so far as to provide some hotels with a free Wi-Fi infrastructure in order to offload the demand on their cellular networks and reduce complaints from their mobile customers. Ball said many facilities are beginning to recognize that basic Internet for attendees is becoming as expected as water and lights. A number of hotels with meeting space are providing free access in the lobby and/or guest rooms. Others are not and they usually charge for Internet access throughout their facilities, he said. Ball recommends that a basic, throttled level of Wi-Fi (512kb/sec) should be provided throughout a meeting facility. That is enough, he said, to tweet, answer s, and view basic web pages but not fast enough to easily stream video. If you need more bandwidth, then pay a reasonable rate, he said to event organizers. How and where to learn MaryAnne Bobrow, CAE, CMP, CMM, CHE of Bobrow and Associates and chair member of the APEX Standards Committee, has encouraged event stakeholders not to run away from the bandwidth question if it seems overwhelming. Help exists, and more is on the way. No one is suggesting that we all become experts in bandwidth, networking and data transmission, she said. The APEX group s key objective is to raise awareness and impart some basic information and best practices about this matter that planners and suppliers both need to consider when thinking about the events they plan, produce or host. Help already exists on the CIC website, including the easy-to-use Bandwidth Estimator. Additional tools and resources such as a site evaluation checklist and glossary of important terms related to the bandwidth matter are in development. The workgroup is also making presentations at industry events that will assist stakeholders in gaining knowledge and information about Internet bandwidth. At the very least, it s time to start the conversation so everyone can get up to speed.

6 What event partners need to know about bandwidth Management of Internet bandwidth needs for events has become an essential part of the planning and the content delivery process. Venue hosts, their Internet management agents, and event planners all bear responsibility for successful connectivity to stakeholders including attendees and participants, exhibitors, venue managers, and presenters. Conversations about bandwidth needs should occur during the site selection or venue buying process. Need to Know Items for Meeting Professionals Include: What is the event or meeting s bandwidth demand? What is the expected level of Internet usage on site? This should include the number and types of mobile devices in use such as smartphones, tablet and laptops, and readers. What do presenters and facilitators require for such functions as live demos, app training, and remote collaboration. How much (low, med, high) bandwidth is required? Consider exhibitors private wireless networks. Their Wi-Fi equipment can interfere with a venue s bandwidth network. Too many wireless networks too close together can cause interference that cause all to stall or shut down. Setting policy about show floor use of networks may be advisable. Understand what is meant by shared/dedicated bandwidth. Shared capacity is generally offered by a hotel, convention center, or other host venue and is based on a best effort performance and not guaranteed. Dedicated bandwidth is set aside for specific use and should carry guarantee of functionality. Know whether the event requires shared or dedicated bandwidth. Shared bandwidth means everyone in a venue may be competing for capacity, but it may be satisfactory for casual use like checking and systems not critical for the event. Dedicated bandwidth is set aside and guaranteed for specific use such as a keynote presentation. Control and access is prescribed to ensure availability when needed. It is recommended for very large events, 5 presenter networks, hybrid meeting activities, and critical event operating systems. Know a venue s bandwidth availabilities and who manages it before booking the event. Ask detailed questions about the age, coverage and capacity of the Wi-Fi system. Know who is your on-site technology partner/expert, and what version the wireless technology they are supporting. Know what event apps are doing. Do apps store schedules and other information, or do they pull them from the Internet each time they re accessed? Do they use photo or video uploading? Is there gamification that requires check-ins, social media interaction, photo scavenger hunts, and so on? An app provider should be able to estimate how much bandwidth can be required. Verify the bandwidth you are getting. Check available speed against what has been promised. Verification sites like and www. speakeasy.net/speedtest provide good starting points although they are not failsafe ways to check your bandwidth. Know when to call for outside help. For events with critical Internet connectivity needs, it may be advisable to hire an Independent Internet Service Provider (ISP) and/or a network consultant who specializes in the event industry. Evaluate alternatives and shop around to fulfill your connectivity needs at a fair price.

7 Need-to-know items for Hotels Sales and Convention Service Professionals include: Ask the customer the question, Do you know the bandwidth and wireless device requirements for your group? Asking the important questions ahead of time provides an opportunity for the meeting professional to assess not only the client s needs, but also the client s understanding of their needs. Hotel sales and convention service professionals must be ready to start these conversations to better serve their customers, meet demand, and exceed expectations. Knowing this information is as important to building a good relationship as knowing the room pickup, food and beverage history or payment history. Ask about the group s past experiences. Have they had service or capacity issues? To better service your clients and understand their past experiences should be part of that conversation as well. Knowing what has caused problems before can help the property s network service provider make the right recommendations about what type of service that will avoid repeating these problems. This may be an opportunity to talk about dedicated bandwidth and Wi-Fi capacity. Know what the property s network service provider is capable of. Can they offer dedicated bandwidth for individual groups? What is the pricing for dedicated bandwidth? How many wireless devices can the network support? Understanding bandwidth and Wi-Fi capacity is just as important as having access to ballroom capacity charts. The availability, access and pricing for dedicated bandwidth is information that you should not only know, but stay up to date on, since technology changes rapidly and infrastructure improvements can happen quickly. 6 Know the bandwidth in the property s meeting facilities, at what point does that max out? If this is a group that pushes the property s physical capacity you need to know if there is enough bandwidth to support all those maxed-out meeting rooms and if the Wi-Fi network can handle all the devices in thouse rooms. If not you ll need to talk about ways to supplement the Wi-Fi or bring in bandwidth and the costs involved in both. The property s network service provider is crucial in this conversation. What is the bandwidth for the sleeping rooms, at what occupancy does that max out? Guest room Internet access has been identified as one of the key satisfaction indicators for both frequent travelers and meeting attendees. Understanding where a property s occupancy level can affect guest room bandwidth is important, especially with large groups and during high-occupancy periods. Be familiar with what s offered in common areas. Very often properties offer Internet service in public space and food outlets, sometimes for free, but often this service offers very limited bandwidth suitable for and simple browsing by a few people only. It is important to set the correct expectation with the client about the level of bandwidth and Wi-Fi capacity available in this area. Connect with the hotel s event technology experts. Know who at the property you can turn to for more information, additional guidance and technical expertise, whether that s an in-house expert or someone who manages the hotel s relationship with the network service provider. With technology and infrastructure investment continuing to evolve at an increasing pace, you can t assume past information is still accurate.

8 About CIC The Convention Industry Council s 31 member organizations represent more than 103,500 individuals and 19,500 firms and properties involved in the meetings, conventions and exhibitions industry. CIC facilitates the exchange of information develops programs to promote professionalism within the industry and educates the public on its profound economic impact. CIC s programs include the Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) program, the Accepted Practices Exchange (APEX) initiative, and numerous industry resource projects. About HSMAI The Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) is committed to growing business for hotels and their partners, and is the industry s leading advocate for intelligent, sustainable hotel revenue growth. The association provides hotel professionals & their partners with tools, insights, and expertise to fuel sales, inspire marketing, and optimize revenue through programs such as HSMAI s MEET, Adrian Awards, and Revenue Optimization Conference. HSMAI is an individual membership organization comprising more than 7,000 members worldwide, with 40 chapters in the Americas Region. Connect with HSMAI at and Copyright 2013 Convention Industry Council (CIC) and Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI). All rights reserved. 7