Guest-network revamp for flagship Hong Kong hotels — live, with minimal downtime

In 2025, a major Hong Kong hotel group set out to modernise the guest network across two of its flagship properties — more than 1,000 guest rooms between them. The existing infrastructure was reaching end of life and had to be replaced wholesale: access-layer switching, Wi-Fi access points, the perimeter firewall, and the HSIA (high-speed internet access) gateway that fronts guest internet.

The properties had also not been built with an access point in every room — coverage came from a smaller number of shared access points, which could not deliver a consistent in-room standard. Raising every room to that standard meant a much denser, per-room access-point design — yet in an occupied building, running new cabling to each room was not an option.

The hard constraint was that both hotels stayed open and occupied throughout. There was no quiet period to work around — every cutover had to happen with guests in-house, on a property that could not afford a visible service gap. The work had to be invisible to guests, completed to a flagship standard, and proven everywhere rather than assumed.

Huacomm acted as the network systems integrator, owning the design and the live migration end to end across both hotels:

• Multi-vendor design and integration — switching, Wi-Fi access points, firewall and HSIA gateway from multiple vendors, designed and integrated into one coherent, working system rather than separate, disconnected upgrades.
• Professional cabling and clean re-patching — re-patched the cabling cleanly and added fibre patching to support a 10 Gb backbone, giving the refreshed switching and access points a tidy, reliable physical foundation.
• An access point in every room, without re-cabling — moved the hotels to a per-room access-point design by re-using the existing in-room cabling — tapping into it to connect a dedicated access point positioned to serve each room — instead of running new cable through occupied rooms.
• Phased, low-impact cutover — the migration ran floor by floor in roughly 60-minute windows timed to the daily check-out/check-in changeover — when room occupancy is lowest — so guests were never left without service for any meaningful period.
• Project management and weekly governance — Huacomm ran the programme with formal project management and a regular weekly progress meeting with the hotel group's stakeholders, keeping scope, schedule and risks visible and aligned across both properties.
• Full-coverage UAT — every guest room was tested against fixed acceptance criteria (about 20 minutes per room): signal strength, throughput, seamless roaming and failover resilience — not spot checks.
• Security separation by design — guest traffic was kept separate from the hotels' administrative and operational systems, so guest devices cannot reach property-management, payment or staff systems.
• Tested, tuned and handed over — delivered in roughly three months per hotel including migration and UAT, then handed over to each property's team to operate afterwards.

A revamp without emptying the hotel

The defining constraint of this project was time of day, not technology. Both hotels were fully operational, so the entire guest network — switching, Wi-Fi, firewall and HSIA gateway — had to be replaced around live occupancy. Huacomm planned the migration floor by floor, cutting each floor over in a short window of around 60 minutes timed to the daily check-out/check-in changeover, when room occupancy is lowest, so guest impact stayed minimal. Careful sequencing, pre-staging and rollback planning are what make "minimal downtime" real rather than a promise. A regular weekly progress meeting with the hotel group's stakeholders kept scope, schedule and risks aligned across both properties from kickoff to handover.

Four components, one system

A guest network is only as good as its weakest link. Replacing the access switches, access points, firewall and HSIA gateway — typically supplied by different vendors — and integrating them into one coherent system rather than four disconnected upgrades is what delivers a consistent guest experience and clean fault isolation. Coordinating and integrating multiple vendors' equipment into a working whole is exactly the systems-integrator role Huacomm plays. The HSIA gateway manages guest internet access, the firewall protects the perimeter, and the switching and Wi-Fi carry the traffic. Underneath every layer, the cabling was re-patched cleanly and fibre patching added to support a 10 Gb backbone — the tidy physical foundation the rest depends on. Huacomm owned that integration, cabling included, so the parts worked as a whole.

An access point in every room — without re-cabling

Before the revamp, neither property had an access point in every room; coverage came from a smaller number of shared access points. Moving to a per-room design is the reliable way to give every room a consistent standard — but pulling new cable to hundreds of occupied rooms was not realistic. Instead, Huacomm re-used the existing in-room cabling, tapping into it to connect a dedicated access point positioned to serve each room. It is a pragmatic, low-disruption approach that delivered the denser design the standard required without tearing the building apart.

Proven, not assumed — full-coverage UAT

Most network projects are signed off on a sample. This one was verified room by room. Every guest room was tested — roughly 20 minutes each — against fixed acceptance criteria before the floor was accepted:

UAT check	Acceptance criterion
Signal strength	-68 dBm or better in the guest room
Throughput	At least 100 Mbps per room

Testing every room is slower and more disciplined than spot-checking — and it is the difference between "should work" and "proven to work" on a flagship property.

Security and separation by design

Guest traffic and a hotel's operational systems should never mix. Huacomm kept the guest network separate from the administrative and back-of-house systems, so a compromised or misbehaving guest device cannot reach property-management, payment or staff systems. On a guest network carrying thousands of unknown devices, that separation protects the business as much as the guest experience.

Planning a guest-network revamp on a live, occupied property? See Huacomm's hospitality / hotel-network solution or talk to our team.