Last week, several of our team members attended the HT-NEXT event in Orlando—a first-time collaboration of HTNG North America and Hotel Technology Forum. The event brought together hospitality technology thought leaders and included information from the Central Authentication workgroup presented by our very own VP of Product, Eric Sullender. When our team came home from the conference, the office was a buzz with all the exciting discussions, learnings and sessions, so we wanted to share our key insights as they relate to the future of guest Wi-Fi.

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.

By Andrew Harrison, Eleven Product Marketing & Sales Enablement Manager

This is part one of a 3-part series, make sure to read parts two and three after this!

Today, you typically gain Internet access at hotels by typing your identity (and/or payment) information into a captive portal login page after connecting to a specific Wi-Fi hotspot. There are several issues with today’s connection process, including: