Nothing damages a hotel’s reputation more quickly than a “weak signal” message. By 2025, Wi-Fi will no longer be just a convenience, but a necessity, as important as electricity and hot water.
For system integrators and network installers, multi-story hotels are a unique nightmare: thick concrete floors, endless corridors, and hundreds of guests watching Netflix simultaneously.
If you’re planning a network upgrade or new installation for a hotel project, choosing the right access point (AP) form factor is crucial. The following guide will help you understand the various hardware options and ensure your clients get five-star reviews.
Challenge: Why home routers don’t work in hotels
We often see small boutique hotels trying to maintain operations using mesh network systems designed specifically for residential use. This is doomed to fail.
Interference is prevalent in multi-story buildings. Routers located on the third floor have difficulty effectively penetrating reinforced concrete walls to reach the second or fourth floors. To ensure coverage, a decentralized network architecture managed by a central processor is required.
Here’s how to select the right hardware for each region:
1. Lobby and corridor: Ceiling-mounted wireless access points
For large open spaces such as lobbies, restaurants, and long corridors, Toda’s ceiling-mounted access points are the industry standard.
They are effective because, due to their high installation position, they can bypass obstacles such as furniture and people, providing a wide “protective umbrella” coverage.
Key feature: Our access points support seamless roaming. This means that as guests walk from the front desk to the elevator, their phones automatically switch to the nearest access point without interrupting their Wi-Fi calls.
Deployment tips: For corridors, install an AP every 15-20 meters to avoid signal blind spots between rooms.
2. Guest Rooms: Application Case of In-Wall Wireless Access Points
This is the biggest trend in modern hotel networking. In the past, installers would place high-powered wireless access points in the hallways, hoping the signal could penetrate heavy fire doors and enter the rooms. The result? Intermittent signals near the bed and bathroom.
Solution: Toda in-wall wireless access point.
These compact devices can replace existing Ethernet wall sockets in guest rooms.
Dedicated Wi-Fi coverage: Each room has its own independent Wi-Fi network. No more competing for bandwidth with the next room.
Simple and aesthetically pleasing: They look like a standard data port, blending perfectly with the hotel’s interior design.
Ethernet pass-through: These typically include an additional LAN port, allowing you to hard-connect IPTV or VoIP phones directly to the AP.
3. The operating “brain”: the communication controller
You can’t manage 50 access points individually. And you don’t want to log into 50 different devices if the hotel wants to change the Wi-Fi password.
For any multi-story building project, a wireless AC controller (access controller) is essential. It enables IT managers to:
Configure all APs through a single interface.
Monitor traffic load and identify devices that consume excessive data.
Set up a mandatory portal (a login page where guests enter their room number or view a promotional banner).
4. Power source: PoE switch
Laying power cables for every wireless access point on the ceiling and walls is both expensive and messy. Therefore, Power over Ethernet (PoE) is essential for hotels.
Using a Toda PoE switch, you can provide both data and power to an access point (AP) using a single CAT6 cable. This simplifies installation, and hotels can restart a malfunctioning AP simply by switching ports on the switch, eliminating the need to send technicians with ladders to guest rooms.
Final advice to installers
When bidding for hotel projects, don’t just sell “Wi-Fi,” sell “customer satisfaction.”
Cheap but poorly covered solutions can ultimately lead to greater losses for hotel owners than reputable enterprise-level solutions, including refunds and negative reviews.
Looking for a reliable supplier for your next hotel project? Toda specializes in providing cost-effective, high-performance network solutions for system integrators. From access points within the firewall to high-capacity core gateways, we have everything you need.
[Please contact the Toda sales team for a project quote]
Post time: Nov-27-2025
