Early last year, the Caribe Royale Orlando, an all-suite convention hotel located in central Florida, announced a $125 million phased renovation. The expansion, which will bring in much larger conferences to the hotel, however, created a new dilemma. The existing one-carrier DAS could not provide the connectivity that the facility needed. Geoverse, a provider of private cellular solutions for property owners and enterprises, has announced that it will deploy a pilot for a CBRS-based neutral host network, which will not only cover the new 50,000-square-foot grand ballroom but will provide service from the major carriers.
“Although the new convention space was beautiful, it had widely inconsistent connectivity depending on your location and carrier; it could be a frustrating experience for attendees,” said Bob Gault, Chief Commercial Officer, Geoverse. “The decision maker at the hotel was forward thinking and sensed a great opportunity to upgrade; he wanted to take a look at the next generation of Neutral Host, which is a private cellular network using the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) that can provide coverage from the major carriers.”
The growth of active DAS networks in hospitality venues has been stunted over the years as all the large venues had been built out by the carriers, which had little interest in building out facilities between 100 thousand and 500 thousand square feet. DAS networks were often seen as too expensive, difficult and time consuming to be deployed by hotels. In the past few years, the hospitality industry, like many others, have been looking for a lower-cost in-building wireless approach that could be managed by a third party and paid for as an operating expense.
“We want to prove that we can deliver a customer a great wireless solution, regardless of the vertical, but specifically in the hospitality space. The hotel should be able to use it as a differentiator to their end user customers and become a showcase hotel,” Gault said.
Geoverse can enable its neutral host cellular service either on the enterprise’s premises or through the cloud. Due to the large size of the venue, Caribe Royale opted to have it deployed on its premises, which includes the radios, the Geoverse evolved packet core and other equipment. The funding model for the turnkey solution is using a monthly network-as-a-service opex business model.
“This project is bringing to life the market for neutral host CBRS, and it takes advantage of our complete managed turnkey solution,” Gault said. “It’s a validation that there are companies in the hospitality industry that are interested in exploring new models, and that traditional DAS models are just not acceptable to them going forward, especially when you think about 5G.”
Inside a Geoverse CBRS Neutral Host Network
Geoverse will deploy a five-radio network using the Ericsson Radio Dot System at the venue along with its GeoCore evolved packet core (EPC). A GeoTrade Service Analytics platform is included to provide a portal for the hotel to get real-time insight into the network users and related activity. Google’s Spectrum Access System (SAS) will be used to allow the coordinated access to the CBRS frequencies and avoid interference with any incumbents or other local CBRS networks.
As both a private cellular provider and operator, Geoverse deploys its own evolved packet core that receives a seamless handoff from the public carrier to maintain the connection for the end user customer roaming into the coverage domain of the private network The EPC, called GeoCore, is industrialized software that Geoverse customizes to connect to a public carrier’s networks to ensure these seamless handoffs occur without interruption so that the wireless customers maintain a high quality connected experience as they transit the venue.
What’s different vs. the legacy DAS approaches is that now the public carriers do not need to “plug-in” to extend their wireless service on each of these venue networks, but instead, their wireless customers still gain automatic connectivity via roaming agreements between Geoverse and the public carriers. This introduces a much more friendly neutral host model that addresses the challenges of complexity and cost found with legacy models. A great benefit to the venue since it’s a mobile first world and people expect reliable connectivity everywhere, and the public carriers also benefit as this helps densify their network and offload traffic from existing network infrastructure.
The handoffs are made possible because Geoverse is a subsidiary of ATN International (NASDAQ: ATNI), which builds and manages public cellular networks and has roaming agreements and relationships with the major cellular carriers. These relationships allow it to provide a neutral host service, but there is interest in providing connectivity with other carriers, Gault said.
WiFi/Cellular Integration Places Hotel in Control of Connectivity
Geoverse also has a strategic partnership with Caribe Royale’s WiFi vendor, which allows the cellular and WiFi networks to connect their architectures together as a follow-on phase to the Neutral Host rollout. As a result, customer information can be captured, shared and displayed to the end user customer in one place.
Integration between the WiFi and private cellular networks will help the hotel with operational support in case something happens to the cellular devices, or the WiFi access points, according to Gault. This gives the user the ability to be able to proactively address any issues and reduce downtime.
“This user information offers the network insight on the key performance indicators of the networks, which facilitates the management of the system,” Gault said. “We understand WiFi has a role, but there are many types of use cases where cellular excels, so we want to prove WiFi and private cellular can play together in a coordinated manner and deliver a great customer experience.”
For more information about private cellular networks, visit Geoverse.
By J. Sharpe Smith Inside Towers Technology Editor
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