When a hotel asks for better guest WiFi, the first question is usually which brand of equipment to buy. The better question is what each part of the network needs to do. A guest network has two very different jobs, and no single product family is the best at both.
Two jobs, two kinds of equipment
The edge: control. The router and gateway sit between your guests and the internet. They decide who is allowed online, how much bandwidth each person gets and how traffic is handled when the circuit is busy. This is where a hotel with expensive bandwidth wins or loses. MikroTik is known for carrier-grade routing and traffic control, and for giving a lot of control without a per-device license.
The rooms and public areas: coverage. Access points and switches deliver the signal to guests and need to be simple to deploy and manage across a whole building. UniFi is known for polished access points and switching with centralized wireless management.
Why not use one vendor for everything?
Single-vendor enterprise stacks are convenient, but they make you accept one vendor's strengths and weaknesses, and its pricing. Many of them charge recurring license fees for every access point, so the network's cost keeps growing with its size, and the network can stop working when a subscription lapses. Comparable license-based systems can cost many times more than a combined MikroTik and UniFi design for similar coverage.
With the combined approach, each layer does what it is best at, and there are no per-access-point license fees: you pay for a managed service, not for a license on each device.
The guest experience sits on top
Hardware alone does not make a good guest experience. On top of the network, TekiEazi runs its own guest-access platform:
- login with last name and room number, checked against your PMS, or with a QR code or an access code,
- automatic reconnection for returning devices,
- branded splash pages that lead to your own guest app, and
- security monitoring across the network.
See the managed hotel WiFi service for how it fits together, and bandwidth management for how bandwidth is shared fairly.
Do you need to replace what you have?
Not always. We assess what you have first, and we upgrade where it makes the biggest difference for guests. To start, request a WiFi assessment or read the FAQ.