Case Study: Pickwick Hall hostel

Built in 1802 and located in Central London, the Pickwick Hall is part of the Bedford Estate and is a well-established hostel that provides shared accommodation primarily aimed for student groups. It offers Internet access for its guests in the reception rooms by WiFi and CAT5 connections. As a hostel, with up to 4 guests per room (potentially each guest with their own laptop), Internet access had become unreliable due to lack of bandwidth and the lack of coverage. Guests had requested fast and reliable Internet access from their bedrooms.

The recommended solution was to place business class WiFi Access Points on every other floor in the building. The problem was how to connect these WiFi devices to the Internet router which is located on the ground floor. As the Pickwick Hall was built in 1802, the cost and disruption of running CAT5 cables (which would need to run up and round the stairs) was considered too great.

The Business Challenge

The challenge for Pickwick Hall has been to find a high speed networking solution capable of delivering high speed Internet access in every room and communal areas. The networking solution needs to be easy to install, low cost and with the minimal of disruption and needs to be completely independent from the hotel’s management network.

The Solution

Power Ethernet offered a simple and non-disruptive solution which helped the Pickwick Hall benefit from Internet access throughout the building with the potential of adding a future revenue stream for the Internet access and an extended use of the network as it can also support security systems, such as CCTV.

By simply replacing 4 traditional power sockets with the Power Ethernet Sockets, the Pickwick Hall was able to locate WiFi routers at the optimum locations to provide Internet access throughout the building as it supports speeds of up to 200Mbps across mains cabling and distances of up to 300 metres between sockets.

The Power Ethernet Socket’s business grade networking also provides the Pickwick Hall with two different secure networks one for the guest and one the hotel’s management.

In future, if the Pickwick Hall decided to incorporate security cameras or Voice over IP telephony services to the network it can be easily expanded simply by installing additional Power Ethernet Sockets which can be run on the Power Ethernet network and not infringe upon the bandwidth of the main computer system helping the Pickwick Hall in reducing its operational cost base.

Patrick Hancock, Owner of Pickwick Hall said: “Power Ethernet Sockets offered me the best networking solution to provide Internet connectivity throughout the building, not just in the rooms but also in the communal areas. With the Power Ethernet sockets we managed to position the wireless Access Points in the optimum positions to provide the best WiFi connectivity for mobile devices, and it saves me at least 50% of the cost of running new CAT5 cable and without the disruption hassle and downtime involve in its installation.”

Key Benefits

• Total Internet coverage throughout the Hostel.
• Minimal disruption and downtime, as no new cables need to be installed.
• Manage switch to securely segment the network: Hotel’s management network separated from guest network
• A scalable solution that will grow with the hostel’s networking requirements. Once the PLC network is installed future installations such as VoIP telephony and CCTV may be simply added to the network, by just installing more PE sockets
• Revenue Generation. The hotel can decide charging options for internet access or provide as a free service to guests.

Download the PDF version of the Pickwickhall Case Study