Taj Hotels Deploys Campus OptiX

Background

IHCL is a chain of luxury hotels across the globe which owns the brands like Taj, Vivanta, SeleQtions, Ginger, Expressions and Taj Sats. It is a part of the Tata Group, one of India’s largest business conglomerates.

For over 100 years, IHCL has acquainted guests with the living heritage of India. The company operates a total of 170 hotels, including 25 under development, across 80 locations in twelve countries across four continents.

In 2019, two Taj hotels were selected among the top 50 hotels in the world by the Condé Nast Traveller magazine.

Customer Challenges

Taj Hotels believe that technology comes before luxury. In addition to hotel decoration, number of guest rooms and facilities, future hotels will evolve to “smart hotels”. Therefore, Taj Hotels group has also shifted its strategic center to technology innovation to reshape customer experience. The infrastructure network faces many challenges when it supports various smart applications:

Traditional copper lines are used for network cabling in hotels. The rapid rollout of new services cannot be achieved. Telephone, Internet access, HD TV, and IoT systems are constructed separately. The cabling is complex. Multiple networks and devices are stacked, and the scalability is poor. Therefore, a converged network is required to carry various services.
The traditional copper line transmission bandwidth is limited and does not support smooth evolution. Cables need to be re-routed every few years. The Cat5 cable is used, and the maximum speed is 1 Gbit/s. If Cat6 is used, the maximum speed is 10 Gbit/s, but the coverage distance is only 55 m. When the distance reaches 100 m, the Cat5 can reach only 100 Mbps, and the Cat6 only reaches 1 Gbit/s. Therefore, the transmission medium and technology that support long-term evolution are urgently needed.
High-end hotels have high requirements on appearance and space saving: Simple cabling and innovative solution are required.

Customer Requirements

IHCL was seeking for a unified and standardized network in all its hotels, with a simple IT architecture and no apparent wiring.

The network was expected to handle simultaneously traditional telephone systems, Internet, Wi-Fi and IPTV, with a single Operation & Management (O&M) platform. It needed to be evolutive, with the capability to handle a higher bandwidth in the future.

The Environmental Management System (EMS) had to be simple and available in each hotels’ room, as well as offices and corridors. It had to be cost-effective, adaptable and operated without involving IT professionals.

Huawei Campus OptiX Solution

Huawei proposed Campus OptiX solution, based on POL (passive optical LAN) technologies to handle the hotel room network as well as the EMS system, with its comprehensive product portfolio including Wi-Fi and switch.

One room, one fiber, one terminal, supporting gigabit access
One fiber to the room replaces at least three copper lines. One ONT implements gigabit fiber to the room and provides users with wired Internet access, Wi-Fi Internet access, IPTV, fixed-line phone and access control. This achieves one fiber for one room and multiple services.

In the future, smart applications have high requirements for continuous bandwidth evolution. With POL, smooth evolution is supported for the next 30 years.
• Fiber has a service life of 30 years. It is resistant to corrosion and aging and supports smooth bandwidth evolution.
• Fiber supports continuous evolution from GPON -> 10G PON -> 50GPON and higher bandwidth and superb experience.
Energy-saving and environment-friendly; no need for weak-current room; fibers routing neat and clean
• Huawei Campus OptiX solution uses architecture innovation and replaces traditional aggregation devices with passive ODN devices to enable two layers reduced from three layers. There is no need for power supply, air conditioners, or weak-current rooms.
• Fiber is light weight and small size, make it easier to do cabling.