August 18, 2026 –

As hotels continue adding AI, smart room technology and connected guest experiences, many are discovering their existing network infrastructure wasn’t designed to support today’s connected environment.

“The one common denominator, whether we look at AI, smart elements, door locks, thermostats, sensors, WiFi or IPTV, is internet connectivity to the guestroom,” said Pierre Trudeau, president/chief technology officer, Positron Access Solutions. “If you have great connectivity to the guestroom, then you can layer different services and applications because they all talk internet.”

Many hotels are still operating with corridor-based WiFi systems installed 15 to 20 years ago.

“Back then, there was the occasional WiFi guest, and there was only one device,” Trudeau said. “Today, the number of devices per person is three or four.”

The increase isn’t limited to guests. Smart thermostats, door locks, televisions, sensors and mobile tools for housekeeping and maintenance all rely on the same network. “The WiFi is as much an enterprise network as it is a guest network,” he said.

Rather than rewiring guestrooms, Positron uses existing coaxial cabling to create gigabit internet connectivity, allowing hotels to modernize without taking rooms out of service.

“Our task is to bring great internet connectivity inside the guestroom because that’s where it’s hard to wire,” Trudeau said. “Most of the time, it’s over the coax cabling.”

The approach also minimizes disruption during installation. “The installation time inside a room is 20 to 25 minutes,” he said. “Because of that timeframe, you never lose revenue from the room.”

Trudeau said installations typically cost in “the low $200s” per room, compared with rewiring projects that can cost $700 to more than $1,500 per room before accounting for lost room revenue.

He pointed to one hotel that received a rewiring estimate of more than $2 million before selecting Positron’s solution for a little more than $350,000. During planning, contractors also discovered asbestos, creating the potential for additional costs and delays.

The company is also seeing hotels take a more proactive approach to infrastructure planning instead of waiting for guest complaints about slow WiFi or unreliable connectivity.

“It started where we would come in because WiFi was bad or there was a desire to migrate to IPTV,” Trudeau said. “Now people say, ‘We need to improve the connectivity in this property because everything centers around the guest experience.’”

That shift has led to larger portfolio-wide deployments. Trudeau cited Caesars Entertainment, which has developed a multiproperty rollout plan to create consistent infrastructure across its hotels.

“They know they have consistent infrastructure, and they can build on top of that with whatever additional things that they wish to offer,” he said.

Trudeau believes one of the biggest mistakes hotels make is treating technology upgrades as separate projects. “They’ll say, ‘We’re updating our WiFi,’ and then we ask, ‘What are you doing about IPTV?’” he said. “Or they want smart door locks but don’t realize that if they do this properly, they also get WiFi and IPTV connectivity.”

Instead, he recommends viewing network infrastructure as the foundation for future technology. “The world is converging to internet, and hotels are no different,” Trudeau said. “Hotels used to have silos: a TV network, a WiFi network, a telephone network. Now everything is converging to internet.”

That foundation also prepares hotels for technologies that haven’t yet reached the market. “Tomorrow, someone will think of a new AI thing or develop a new sensor that’s relevant for hotels,” he said. “The only common denominator is everything runs over gigabit Ethernet.”

To help hotels maintain network performance, Positron has also introduced monitoring tools that establish a baseline after installation and regularly scan the property’s network to identify degradation before it affects guests.

“When you do that, you don’t have to get the call at two in the morning because someone’s TV went down,” Trudeau said.