Firetide has posted a case study on its first hotel Wi-Fi mesh deployment at a Holiday Inn in Bluefield, West Virginia (not exactly a high-profile property, but you gotta start somewhere).

I've been following Wi-Fi in hotels for a few years now and was surprised that mesh didn't find its way into these properties sooner. Anything that makes for a faster installation is going to attract the attention of general managers and integrators alike. I'm glad to see a real-world deployment.

According to the case study, the hotel used mesh routers and access points to cover the entire property (134 guest rooms, two conference rooms, the office and the pool are) in just two days. I estimate that a conventional Wi-Fi installation of this size would have taken five to seven days.

The hotel uses a DSL connection for backhaul, keeping operational costs low; a number of small hotel properties use DSL for their main connection rather than a T1 line. They'll have to upgrade as usage increases, but there's no sense is paying for what you don't yet need.