Technology Essentials to Optimize and Scale Your Operations
November 1, 2022
Written by: Beth Hamilton, Product & Marketing Manager.
Why do you need technology to optimize and scale your operations? Simply put, the majority of us are here to make money. I’m sure we all feel how hard it has become to stretch a dollar and make every minute count. Technology, when used properly, can and will help you grow your business by cutting time on mundane tasks, automating processes, and helping you work more efficiently.
What are Private Network Groups (PNGs)?
May 2, 2022
Written by: Matt Corkum, Digital Content Manager.
Private Network Groups are an amazing option for many different industries. They provide security, they reduce overhead support costs, and they give users an "at home" experience that they will appreciate, creating positive brand connections for the client.
5 Reasons to Hire a Professional Instead of Managing Your Own Technology
March 28, 2022
Written by: Beth Hamilton, Product & Marketing Manager.
In the hospitality industry, many companies are evolving into technology providers or choosing to take their tech needs in-house. We think is a dangerous game (and not just for us). We have looked at some data on the tech industry in 2022 and here’s why you should take a hard look before considering taking your technology needs in-house.
Digital Nomadism and Remote Work – Good News for Vacation Rentals and Hotels
March 23, 2022
Written by: Matt Corkum, Digital Content Manager.
Digital Nomads can work from anywhere – they leverage technology to do their job from any location they wish. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people were forced to work from home. As restrictions lifted, remote work remained an option and many people found themselves living the digital nomad lifestyle – still working from home, but able to work from a coffee shop, a park, or a vacation rental or hotel.
How To Easily Share Your WiFi Password with Friends and Family Between Apple Devices
March 22, 2022
Written by: Matt Corkum, Digital Content Manager.
"What's the WiFi password?" We've all heard or said it, and if the router has a good, secure password, it can be annoying to type in a string of letters, numbers and symbols. If Apple devices are involved, however, it can be relatively painless!
Hotels Must Embrace Technology In a Post-COVID World
March 14, 2022
Written by: Matt Corkum, Digital Content Manager.
The Vacation Rental industry has leveraged technology to become a behemoth in the tourism industry.While hotels have long embraced the Internet for booking, they have had to adapt much more slowly to smart technology trends. Here's why they must continue to emrbace tech.
Digital Transformation
March 1, 2022
Written by: Matt Corkum, Digital Content Manager.
A huge buzzterm in business today is "Digital Transformation". It's not just moving from paper to Microsoft Word, or using Zoom for meetings! Learn how we recently helped a local lumber company revitalize the technology that is at the core of their business.
Privacy features in iOS 15: What they mean for network owners, end users, and marketers
January 26, 2022
Written by: Matt Corkum, Digital Content Manager.
With iOS 15, Apple introduced several new privacy-focused features for users of iPhones, iPads and Macs: iCloud Private Relay, Hide My E-mail, and Mail Privacy Protection. Here’s how they affect end users and what they mean for network operators and marketers.
The Owner Manages the WiFi - Why This Will Hurt Your Vacation Rental
July 28, 2021
Written by: Beth Hamilton, Product & Marketing Manager
Letting your owner control your Internet, WiFi, and TV is a recipe for disgruntled guests. When outages occur, you have no control over the systems, meaning that you have no way to remedy the situation or find answers without involving the owner. Read more as to how and why we suggest that you take control over your guest entertainment services in order to protect your vacation rental brand and gain valuable marketing information.
WiFi Extender: Will it Bring You Better WiFi Coverage?
July 15, 2021
Written by: Nathan Stiles, Professional Services Engineer
One of the most common and widely used home network solutions is the WiFi Extender. But will adding this help bring you more coverage, or cause you more headaches? Should you consider utilizing a network technician for your property, or can you get by with a simple extender? Let's find out.
Patient Entertainment Systems Are Changing, Are You?
July 9, 2021
Written by: Robin Veinotte, Director of New Ventures
Traditional patient entertainment systems are antiquated and expensive. It can be daunting to know where to start the research for such an expensive and crucial service for the patience experience. In this blog we highlight the main points that you should be looking at when starting to investigate a new TV and WiFi system.
Three Notable Hospitality Trends for 2021
June 24, 2021
Written by: Andrew Wolfe, Account Executive
We reviewed a list of 100 hospitality industry trends to identify the three that stood out to us the most and what you should consider when reviewing them. Whether you manage a vacation rental, short term rental, hotel, or resort, these trends are important for you to monitor and respond to.
How to Attract Repeat Bookings with Automated Emails – Part 2
June 8, 2021
Written by: Beth Hamilton, Product & Marketing Manager
We all know that it's cheaper and easier to keep a returning guest than it is to find a new one. In this blog, we suggest that you work on sending 6 key marketing emails to your repeat guests in order to cultivate repeat bookings for your vacation rental, short term rental, or hotel. Our customers who have done just a fraction of this work have seen increase in bookings and profits.
How to Attract Repeat Guests – Part 1
June 4, 2021
Written by: Beth Hamilton, Product & Marketing Manager
Repeat guests play a significant role in the hospitality and travel industries. It's been proven over and over again that acquiring new guests is tough and expensive. Well in this blog we’ve done our research and found that these five activities will help you to attract repeat guests to your property which will have a positive impact on your bottom line.
Are you in Control of your In-Suite Guest Entertainment Costs?
April 29, 2020
Written by: Robin Veinotte, Director of New Ventures
The short term and vacation rental industries crash due to COVID-19. Are you struggling to maintain costs of your in-suite guest entertainment during the COVID-19 pandemic? We have helped many customers get control of these costs to set them up for success when this is over.
"Randy Fixed Our Wi-Fi"
July 16, 2019
Written by: Beth Hamilton, Product and Marketing Manager
It is a really great day when you can combine your professional skill set with your giving spirit and favourite hobby. Randy, our CTO, and I have had the privilege of doing just that this summer. I have been involved in an event called The BIG SWIM since 2013, and Randy since 2014. This event fundraises to support a charity called Brigadoon Village, an incredible charity that provides camp programming for children with chronic illnesses and other life challenges. We had the pleasure of performing some site work at their location in Aylesford, Nova Scotia to help with their summer camp programming.
WiFi Challenges in Vacation Rentals
July 10, 2019
Written by: Jennifer Down, Account Executive at SolutionInc
Arriving in downtown Toronto was an amazing experience for me as I have not been there before and was very excited to see the night skyline. I must say, Toronto did not disappoint as the views were spectacular. In the city for business, I was lucky enough to have friends who live in Mississauga so they were happy to show me around and get me to my vacation rental.
Review of WiFi Now Conference
May 27, 2019
Written by: Robin Veinotte, Director of New Business Ventures
SolutionInc attended this years’ WiFi Now conference in DC and it was a fantastic event.
There seemed to be some up and commers in the in the hardware, network monitoring and cloud gateway space there as vendors, and most of the presentations were great to take in and very informative.
Wi-Fi VS Internet: Is There a Difference?
April 14, 2019
Written by: Robin Veinotte, Director of New Business Ventures
We run into a lot of operators and management companies that blend WiFi and Internet into one service and assume it’s all the same thing. This works ok for your home connection if your tech needs are simple; but when running a business it does not cut it. Your guests expect a flawless experience and your business needs a network dedicated to running your business. As a property manager, operator, or developer, you have to look at your technology, and specifically your WiFi/Internet a bit differently as you grow.
Know More about Your Guests with Wi-Fi Analytics.
April 10, 2019
Written by: Beth Hamilton, Product & Marketing Manager
It is no secret that your guests are expecting world-class WiFi access when they arrive at your property. We believe that your properties WiFi is more than just an important guest amenity; it’s a tool for you to help gain insights into your guests. We may be biased, but we believe that WiFi analytics allow you the visibility and confidence to best understand and serve your guests. Think of the power that this knowledge provides your team to do their job to the highest standard.
How to Ensure Successful Wiring of Your Vacation Rental.
April 1, 2019
Written by: Robin Veinotte, Director of New Business Ventures
There is a new trend in the Vacation Rental space that is causing a lot of managers and builders to scratch their heads and seek an educated professional’s opinion. That trend is: converting old apartment buildings, or building new ones, and turning them into “hotel-like” vacation rental buildings. Everything, including your WiFi network, becomes increasingly complex and requires more robust commercial hardware when you take on a project like this. Guest expectations are raising and this shifts the industry even further into a traditional hospitality model with a little Vacation Rental flare.
Deciding Your Network Needs
March 11, 2019
Written by: Robin Veinotte, Director of New Business Ventures
Whether you are opening a new property, renovating an existing facility, or simply updating the network needs inside an existing venue, it is important to take some time to decide what you need from your network. With rapidly changing technologies you cannot afford to implement your networks like you have in the past – everything is evolving and you need to as well.
The Most Confusing Part of CES 2019
January 25, 2019
Written by: Robin Veinotte, Director of New Business Ventures
While at The Consumer Electronic Show (CES) 2019 it was easy to get lost in a barrage of gadgets, drones, TV Displays and speakers that light up. Lots of vendors had some sort of gadget or enhancement to last years gadget to make someone want to buy the next version (#typical).
However, the big buzz in the Telecom industry seems to be the impending arrival of 5G and everyone in an industry related seemed to tout some sort of 5G enabled device in the pipeline. But when asked what and where 5G is, there was a lot of different answers being thrown back at any one asking.
Optimizing Your Bandwidth Usage
December 19th, 2018
Written by: Andrew McCracken, Solutions Engineer at SolutionInc.
More than ever today, we place a growing strain on the capacity of our Internet connections. Multimedia content rich applications such as Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Social Media and downloads account for the majority of data usage. According to Forbes, Netflix alone consumes 15% of the world’s Internet bandwidth. Not to be outdone, the venerable BitTorrent protocol accounts for 22% of upstream bandwidth usage. This puts a strain on service provider infrastructure, but what about in the home and your own experience?
VRMA Vendor Recap
November 16, 2018
Vlog Post by Robin Veinotte, Director, New Business Ventures
If you follow our social media, you'd know that we attended the Vacation Rental Management Association International Show (VRMA) this year and had an excellent time at the trade show MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
One of our favorite parts of the trade show was getting to meet the excellent vendors who were exhibiting at the show alongside us. Everything from towels to property management systems, there was a vendor for just about everything. It should come as no surprise, though, that the vendors we were particularly interested in were those with WiFi enabled tech.
VRMA Attendee Recap Vlog
November 14, 2018
Vlog Post by Robin Veinotte, Director, New Business Ventures
We attended the Vacation Rental Management Association International Show (VRMA) this year and had an excellent time at the trade show MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Being our first time attending and exhibiting, we really weren't too sure what to expect. Here we explain the top 3 pillars that we took away from our current and potential customers at this show.
Impact of being a global company
November 12, 2018
Written by: Beth Hamilton, Product & Marketing Manager
It is no secret that when you become a global organization, your business changes significantly. In today's market, it can be difficult to be successful while only servicing customers locally or even nationally; going global is almost a requirement. We've been a global company for many years working in the Internet and network fields for more than twenty years. I'm old enough to remember the first computer that my friend had and the most amazing games ever - pong and frogger! But it's otherwise hard for me to remember a time without consistent WiFi access and google in the palm of my hand. And the reality is that many parts of the world still aren't caught up to North American standards of connectivity.
Airbnb for Canada Day
July 3, 2018
Written by: Beth Hamilton, Product & Marketing Manager
I had the pleasure of spending the Canada Day long weekend in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. It's a small province in Eastern Canada that boasts incredible seafood, everything Anne of Green Gables, and pristine beaches. This trip, my girl friends and I chose to rent an Airbnb cottage outside of Charlottetown, just a 15 minute drive from the beach or downtown. This being my first experience with Airbnb, I was curious to see how everything would work.
Developing Markets
May 17, 2018
Written by: Jerry Mosher, Solution Specialist
FHA 2018: another great event. For those unfamiliar, that’s the Foodnhotelasia, Asia’s premiere bi-annual industry trade show. There is lots of activity happening in the technology scene that is heavy on user experience. I very quickly noticed data analytics (think dashboards), self-service, surveys, and end-user connectivity are key drivers for growth. All these growth areas focus on gaining personal insight to our customer’s experience. This gives us the ability to know where we shop, where we eat, and where we play. All with the click of a button, and all with the ability to self-serve. And what is one thing that everyone needs and, in many cases, is willing to give you their information for? WiFi access.
My First Access Point
May 4, 2018
Written by: Beth Hamilton, Product & Marketing Manager.
We went on site today to complete the installation of our WiFi authentication portal, analytics engine, and site services to a local customer. In case you don't already know, an access point (AP) is a hardware box that is used to create a wireless local area network (WLAN) by connecting to a wireless router (what you get from your internet service provider). AP's allow users to roam around your facility without service interruptions and can also be used to track usage.
Summit Place Hotels Announcement at the Nova Centre
March 27, 2018
Posted by: Glen Girard, SolutionInc Channel Development Manager
In March our team, including Glen Lavigne, Karen Saunders, and I, attended the announcement of the new Sutton Place Hotel to be launched in 2019 in Halifax. The Nova Centre event included spectacular speeches from Halifax Mayor Mike Savage, Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil, Developer Joe Ramia from Rank Ltd, and Tom Gaglardi, CEO of Sutton Place Hotels. The venue was bright and held a stunning view of the Halifax downtown and harbour, demonstrating that the Nova Centre will be a premiere destination for conventions and corporate events for decades to come.