Arora International Hotels checks in for premium quality communications with ntl:Telewest Business (press release)

Arora International Hotels, one of the UK's fastest-growing business hospitality groups, has chosen ntl:Telewest Business to provide a high-speed network that will deliver premium quality data and video services to its guests, conference delegates and operational teams.

ntl:Telewest Business, part of the Virgin Media group, was selected for the technical capability of its next generation network and its approach  to provisioning hotel communications that are tailored to the requirements of each site, now and for the future.

The network connects all seven Arora International hotels - three at Heathrow airport, three at Gatwick airport and one in Manchester - and the company's headquarters through an advanced Internet Protocol Virtual Private Network (IPVPN). The Sofitel London Heathrow  has a 100 Megabits-per-second (Mbps) service, enabling it to deliver extremely high-speed and resilient data and video to its typically premium business customers..

As well as many hotel guests now expecting access to high-speed communications services as standard, advanced video and data services are increasingly a booking requirement for meetings and conferences.

"The Sofitel London Heathrow is one of the biggest conference hotels in the UK, with 605 bedrooms and 45 conference rooms. Consequently, at any one time the building might contain more than a thousand people, most of whom will expect high speed communications as a prerequisite," said Sunny Roda, IT and Purchasing Director of Arora. "This demand has been driven in part by the increasing requirement of travellers and businesses to use high-bandwidth services such as videoconferencing and fast internet access while in the hotel. We need to be able to meet these expectations and ensure that our network delivers optimum resiliency and performance. The ntl:Telewest Business service is delivered over our existing Local Area Network (LAN) infrastructure so there were minimal changes for us to make.

"Arora International is a fast-moving organisation and plans to develop further hotels where the right opportunities arise. We chose ntl:Telewest Business because it not only has a next generation network capability UK-wide, but also the can-do attitude to provisioning new services and delivering a network design that is exactly right for our needs."

"Demand for high-speed data and voice services is soaring in the hospitality sector. Hotel groups are having to assess not only where they can gain access to fibre optic network technology, but also how the telco will partner with them to deliver a tailored network and service," said Andrew Beckhaus, Head of Business Markets for ntl:Telewest Business in London. "Our close collaboration with Arora is a model of best practice for delivering next generation communications in this sector and we look forward to our relationship developing over time."

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