‘InternetXL’ will provide service 20 times faster than household high speed broadband
Delta Hotels and Resorts recently announced that 17 of its properties across Canada have upgraded their bandwidth to provide the fastest Internet service available in any full service hotel chain in Canada, the company says. This new offering, called InternetXL, will provide service that is 20 times faster than household high-speed Internet.
A recent study¹ shows that the ways in which hotel guests are using broadband has changed radically since 2009. Within a 12 month period, web browsing dropped nearly by half (39 per cent to 20 per cent), while real-time entertainment (i.e. Netflix, YouTube) grew by almost 50 percent (30 per cent to 43 per cent). Within the same time period, the emergence of new categories, particularly real-time communications like Skype, have already made a significant impact.
As a result, travellers are increasingly demanding that hotels provide the technical capability to stay connected to their lives back home while they travel. Many new cloud-based services allow us to take our virtual lives with us when we travel – facilitating access to our libraries of TV and movies, or all the content on a shared office drive, from anywhere that has an Internet connection. Whether they are Skyping with their kids, streaming their favourite TV show or downloading files for work, travelers want a high quality broadband that won’t let them down.
“InternetXL provides the functionality for guests to work and play on their own terms while traveling,” explains Ken Lambert, Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Delta Hotels and Resorts. “The service goes beyond what most of us can get in our homes by a significant margin. In fact, we’re pretty sure that our guests will wish they could take InternetXL back home with them when they leave.”
The InternetXL service will be offered at 17 select Delta locations, and is free for a limited time.
InternetXL will also be a favourite for meeting planners. As more and more meetings and conferences include elements such as webcasts, Twitter walls, online demonstrations, heavy downloading and live video streaming, meeting planners are finding the basic Internet services provided by some hotels and convention centres just can’t meet the needs of their heavy traffic. This often requires setting up expensive additional access for these events. InternetXL will offer meeting planners the ability to guarantee and reserve Internet bandwidth accessibility and to secure dedicated I.P. addresses for their events, at a price point that cannot be matched by outside providers.
“We have seen an increasing trend with clients who want to integrate online elements into their meetings and events,” says Lambert. “With InternetXL, our clients can be confident that they will have reliable service for high bandwidth activities. This is the way that the world is moving, and it’s exciting to be leaders in the Canadian hotel marketplace.”
InternetXL is now available at Delta Vancouver Suites, Delta Grand Okanagan, Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe, Delta Bow Valley, Delta Calgary Airport, Delta Edmonton South, Delta Winnipeg, Delta Lodge at Kananaskis, Delta Chelsea, Delta Meadowvale, Delta Centre-Ville, Delta Montreal, Delta Quebec, Delta Halifax, Delta Barrington and Delta Beausejour. It will also be available at Delta Ottawa City Centre in mid-April.
In addition to this new service, Delta will also provide its base high-speed Internet access for free in all guestrooms across the chain that do not have InternetXL.
