Case Study: The Bull Hotel

Background

The Bull Hotel is Peterborough’s only four star city centre hotel. Comprising of 118 bedrooms and fourteen function rooms, it caters for a mix of both UK and overseas visitors. An adjoining conference suite has rooms suited for corporate events, functions and conferences. The hotel maintenance manager, Howard Vacca, has worked at the hotel for 12 years and has seen the internet become an essential part of the service to guests.

Challenge

Despite multiple broadband connections servicing the hotel, the Bull Hotel found demand for bandwidth was fast outstripping what it could supply Business guests now expect to access emails online quickly and easily upload and download documents. Many overseas guests have a preference to stream TV programmes in their own language and use Skype to keep in contact with colleagues and family back home. The Bull Hotel’s own office staff also need to quickly access reservation systems, supplier details and billing information. Mr Vacca stated that their guests expect the hotel internet system to reflect the service they are used to receiving at home. In reality, when the hotel is at capacity, it only takes a small number of overseas guests to start streaming online TV channels and its bandwidth is taken to the maximum. Mr Vacca continued: “Generally our guests make us aware when they are unable to access the internet, or if they find the service slow. By making improvements to our systems we are taking an important step to ensure that we are providing the best possible service that we can for our guests. “It is also important that we ensure our function rooms are fully utilised, and with video conferencing becoming ever more popular for business events, we need to make sure our rooms are equipped appropriately to deliver the needs of the businesses booking our facilities.”

Solution

The Bull Hotel was one of the first businesses to connect to the Peterborough CORE – and the first hotel. Service provider Businesscoms replaced The Bull Hotel’s four broadband lines and multiple phone lines with a single pure fibre connection. There is now gigabit speed connectivity throughout the hotel, meaning guests have access to ultra-fast WiFi connectivity and the hotels office staff is also fully supported. Guests are delighted that they can now access better internet connectivity. Mr Vacca said: “Usage has been astronomical. Guests have realised that the internet is so much more open to them and they’re using it. Before this we were averaging about 400MB usage every month but we’ve easily doubled that now.” Businesscoms has also upgraded the switchboard at The Bull Hotel, reducing costs by removing phone lines and installing a VoIP (online) telephone system. Mr Vacca added: “The VoIP service has been a great addition. It has brought the cost of our telephone calls down and that means we’ve been able to pass the benefit onto the customer with a reduced tariff for using the phones in their rooms.”