Blog

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.  

Written by: Matt Corkum, Digital Content Manager.

Does your vacation rental or hotel need an internet gateway? The answer is a resounding YES, for a variety of reasons. Learn about the ins and outs of Internet Gateways.

Written by: Matt Corkum, Digital Content Manager.

Apple has added some new features around Wi-Fi passwords in iOS 16. You can now view Wi-Fi passwords, and there is an editable list of every Wi-Fi network you've ever joined!

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.

Written by: Matt Corkum, Digital Content Manager.

New mobile devices and computers are released each year boasting support for the latest generation of WiFi technology. What are the benefits of the newest generation, WiFi 6E?

Written by: Beth Hamilton, Product & Marketing Manager.

Direct bookings are down across the board, yet they're the best way to connect with your clients and they make you the most money. So let's get those numbers up. Here are 5 ways to use technology to increase direct bookings.

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.

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.

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!

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.

Written by: Matt Corkum, Digital Content Manager.

Smart Locks have many benefits to vacation rental owners, managers, and guests Not all solutions are for everyone though. Here are our tips for choosing and using smart locks in your vacation rental.

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.  

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. 

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. 

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. 

Written by: Beth Hamilton, Product & Marketing Manager

These WiFi best practices will help you to improve your guest WiFi experience in your vacation and/or short term rental. 

Written by: Beth Hamilton, Product & Marketing Manager

Here our team digs into the repercussions from the iOS14 MAC Randomization feature, or “private address” as it’s being referred to by Apple.

Written by: Beth Hamilton, Product & Marketing Manager

Wi-Fi Meshing is a popular but misunderstood term in networking. Here we discuss why it may not be best alternative for your network and how it negatively impacts your user experience.  

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. 

Written by: Beth Hamilton, Product & Marketing Manager

We break down how WiFi impacts, or is impacted by, your guests, owners, managers, employees and neighbors as it relates to vacation rentals and short term rentals. 

Written by: Robin Veinotte, Director of New Ventures

Here are 5 reasons why we suggest using an expert for your vacation rental technology needs - including smart locks, thermostats, noise sensors and WiFi. 

Written by: Beth Hamilton, Product & Marketing Manager

Our team had 5 key takeaways from the 2019 RezFest Conference. Read more about what trends we see in the Vacation Rental industry. 

Written by: Beth Hamilton, Product & Marketing Manager

It is easy to get lost in the sea of smart home tech for Vacation Rentals. Here are the 5 items of technology that we recommend in a vacation rentals to keep your guests safe

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Written by: Nathan Stiles, Student and Junior Technical Support Engineer at SolutionInc.

Here our co-op student, Nathan, describes what it's like to work for the SolutionInc team while being a student. 

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

Written by: Rob George, SolutionInc Sr. Solutions Architect

Cisco Connect 2018 was a welcomed event after a 2 year hiatus in Halifax. Held at the new Halifax Convention Center, it was a chance to re-connect and discover what’s new in the world of network technologies.

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.