Overview:
The All-in-one Guest Access Solution of Tomorrow, Delivered Today
High quality Internet service is no longer optional for hospitality businesses. It is a guest expectation and a key to customer satisfaction. Yet, providing satisfactory Internet access is not simply a matter of installing Ethernet cables and wireless access points where guests need them. Hospitality businesses need to address the issues of access management, regulation compliance, and providing sufficient bandwidth for an exploding amount of wireless mobile devices.
The Zyxel UAG4100 Unified Access Gateway is a next-generation, all-in-one wireless hotspot/access gateway designed to fulfill the hospitality challenges of both today and tomorrow. In addition to account management, billing, and data retention capabilities, the UAG4100 offers premium features—like 802.11 a/b/g/n dual-radio Wi-Fi and a built-in WLAN controller—to deliver better scalability, capacity, and performance to fulfill tomorrow’s guest access demands. The built-in WLAN controller can manage up to 16 APs, which makes the UAG4100 ideal for multi-room network deployments in smaller accommodation facilities like small hotels, hostels, or B&Bs (bread and breakfast). Used with the SP350E ticket printer, on the other hand, the UAG4100 is the perfect solution for single-location Wi-Fi hotspot deployments in hotel lobbies, restaurants, or cafés.
- IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n dual-radio (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) design
- Supports 200 concurrent logins by default and up to 300 via license upgrade
- Integrated account generator, Web-based authentication portal and billing system
- Supports external RADIUS servers
- Per account bandwidth management
- SP350E Service Gateway Printer enables one-click account and billing generation
- SMS ticketing with ViaNett protocol support
- Built-in WLAN controller (supports 8 APs by default and up to 16 APs via license upgrade)
- Facilitates compliance with data retention regulations
Benefits:
Increasing customer loyalty
Virtually everyone today has at least one wireless mobile device, like smartphones, tablets, and laptops computers. Yet, yesterday’s hotspot gateways can no longer handle the exploding amount of wireless mobile devices that need Wi-Fi access. To satisfy this fast-growing demand, hospitality businesses need a solution that can provide greater Wi-Fi bandwidth, capacity and performance.
The Zyxel UAG4100 is a next-generation wireless hotspot/access gateway that provides better performance, capacity, and service quality than other similar solutions. Its 802.11 a/b/g/n dual-radio (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) design provides 2x the spectrum and 2x the bandwidth to accommodate a much larger amount of wireless devices. Its high performance hardware architecture can support 200 concurrent logins by default, and up to 300 concurrent logins via license upgrade. It also offers granular bandwidth management capabilities to enforce equal bandwidth sharing, avoid bandwidth abuse, and provide the service quality necessary to increase customer loyalty and attract new customers.
Generating revenue
The Zyxel UAG4100 Unified Access Gateway is designed with advanced billing, user authentication, and access control features that help hospitality businesses manage guest accounts, block unauthorized access, and generate revenue with their Internet services. It gives hospitality businesses the flexibility to offer Wi-Fi access as a free service, a tiered service (premium when a purchase is made), or a paid service, depending on the preferred business model.
- Guest account management: Featuring a built-in account generator and a Web-based authentication portal, the UAG4100 helps hospitality businesses provide controlled network access to hundreds of guests with ease. Simply by entering the provided account information in the captive portal, guests can get secure wired or wireless access to the Internet in a matter of seconds. Additionally, the UAG4100 supports external RADIUS servers and external portal page redirection for added deployment flexibility.
- Billing system: Hospitality businesses can create up to 10 pre-paid billing plans with the UAG4100. Billing plans can be customized with varying bandwidth speeds, service duration, and level of payment.
- SP350E Service Gateway Printer: The SP350E and UAG4100 combination is the perfect solution for Wi-Fi hotspot applications. The SP350E enables one-click billing and account generation, which offers easy operation for staff members and smooth services flows in hotel lobbies, conference rooms, waiting areas and busy restaurants and cafés.
- SMS ticketing: The UAG4100 supports SMS ticketing with ViaNett to provide improved convenience for both the business owner and the customer. With built-in support for SMS ticketing, the UAG4100 allows business owners to send Internet account and billing information directly to the customer’s mobile phone, without needing to spend loads of money building an independent SMS ticketing system. This feature offers a cheaper and more environment-friendly ticketing solution compared to paper ticketing, and reduces the inconvenience related to customers loosing or forgetting paper tickets.
Reducing deployment costs
In addition to single-location Wi-Fi hotspot deployments, the Zyxel UAG4100 Unified Access Gateway is also suitable for extended, multi-room network deployments in smaller accommodation facilities like small hotels, B&Bs and hostels. It features a built-in WLAN controller that helps small accommodation businesses extend the WLAN to multiple locations in the facility (guest rooms, dining areas, or even outdoors). The built-in WLAN controller supports 8 APs by default, and up to 16 APs via license upgrade. With a built-in WLAN controller, the UAG4100 helps reduce deployment costs by eliminating the need to purchase an extra WLAN controller and lowers maintenance time and effort by providing centralized management of all the APs in the network.
Meeting the challenges of regulatory compliance
Many countries have data retention laws, like the EU Data Retention Directive (2006/24/EC), which require businesses to retain Internet usage records for a certain amount of time. Hospitality businesses need to comply with these data retention regulations to avoid legal fines and regulatory penalties; but this can become a significant burden for hospitality owners if they do not have the right equipment.
Designed with hospitality businesses in mind, the Zyxel UAG4100 Unified Access Gateway helps hospitality businesses meet the challenges of regulatory compliance. Deployed with a syslog server, the UAG4100 can automatically record user account information, MAC addresses, source and destination IPs, data volume and protocol type for government auditing if required.
