We have quickly become accustomed to the world at our fingertips. In just a decade, our habits and lives are forever changed–many of us no longer travel with maps, we can answer almost any question in mere seconds, and we can connect with people on the other side of the globe in an instant. Wi-Fi has also since become ubiquitous in hotels and other public spaces, in response to the expectation that we are connected always and everywhere. But for many reasons, the industry has not always been able to keep up with the demand for more and better Wi-Fi.

With the ubiquity of mobile and always-on connectivity, it's hard to believe it was less than 20 years ago that Wi-Fi was first available in homes and just over 10 years since the first iPhone came out. When Eleven first started in 2002, the Wi-Fi brand had just come out and hotel Internet was still almost all wired. To see how far we've really come, it's interesting to look back at the history of Wi-Fi.

Last week some of our team members joined hospitality's brightest minds to talk technology at the HT-NEXT conference in San Diego. We engaged in meaningful conversations, attended informative sessions, and came home with several great insights about how hotel brands develop their Wi-Fi strategy for today—and tomorrow.

This post was originally posted in February 2017 and has been upated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

There are two primary ways to address guest demand for seamless, automatic connection to hotel Wi-Fi: Mac re-authentication and Passpoint. In this post we will explain how the technology works and the benefits and challenges of each.