Flynn Rider 1
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Feb 29, 2012
Disney filed paperwork to install property-wide WiFi at the Walt Disney World resort. The contractor is Crown Castle, whose website touts their large scale shared multi-user WiFi installations.
There's a big difference between guest WiFi at WDW resort hotel rooms and true property-wide WiFi.was there in January, stayed at Riverside and had free internet access.
Though seriously, this is at least partly about NextGen/XPass/whatever-they-call-it.
id be very surprised if this was for free internet access for everyone.
Why would they do that for day/offsite guests? I dont see any benefit to Disney for offering that.
More likely, it will purely be wifi access for WDW apps. Probably not very imaginative ones either - X-Pass related, maybe resort wide kim possible adventure type games to encourage people to visit all areas of all parks and maybe hotels?
Of course, this also offers them the option of geolocating every guest at every second they're on property I'm sure they'd love to get at data like that to find out things like the types of guests who go off property the most and for how long.
Maybe, just maybe, they'll offer property wide free internet access to deluxe resort guests as well.
lol like usual Disney Parks ten years behind the rest of the world!
Why would they do it? Because there are practical and financial benefits to Disney when guests can use their mobile sites and apps to see ride wait times, secure XPASS / FASTPASS tickets, book ADRs, play games while waiting in line and so on.
They could just limit access to Disney-sponsored services--we'll see. Given the way Disney has embraced social media, they may now realize there are ancillary benefits to having millions of guests posting live to Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest, YouTube, Ustream and dozens of other emerging social sites while live in the parks. It's free advertising.
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You do have a good point here, but im not convinced!
Limiting access to some subset of guests (i.e. Deluxe resort guests) is a possibility but it would require some form of authentication system. So far there have been no signs of such a system being implemented.
yeah but its easy enough - most wifi service providers make you hit their own web page first to login before opening up your access to the rest of the internet. Disney could easily just ask for your booking number and some other password to log in.
Six months ago I was convinced Disney was content using Internet service as a profit center among resort guests. Now that they've begun to roll-out free wifi at the hotels, I think it's only a matter of time before it spreads to the parks.
oh im sure this is entirely about a profit center somehow/somewhere. They wont be implementing a project on this size without some direct revenue stream from it. They're definitely not doing it just so they can say that guests can access their emails anywhere on property!
But this thread is about the parks. If Walt Disney World is actually planning to roll-out free wifi throughout the developed areas of its 30,000 acres, it would put them ahead of most of the world.
definitely, wifi on this scale is still quite new.
Disney's mission is to make money for Disney.The more I think about this the more I do hope it is for internet access - even if its fairly limited internet access.
All us international guests would love to be able to stay in touch with home without having to break the bank with data charges and avoid the hassle of buying phone cards as well.
Even with extreme restraint I still managed to run up a £60 phone bill last time just with a couple of looks on google maps and a few other things.
Even just allowing access to skype, google services and facebook would save so much hassle and money.
thats pretty much what I already said on the previous pageDisney's mission is to make money for Disney.
If this WiFi implementation allows guests to stay in touch with home using services such as Facebook and Skype, that would be good for guests -- but that would not be the reason why Disney has contracted for property-wide WiFi.
If this turns out be WiFi for guests, not just for company use, it will be because Disney has a business plan that justifies the expense. For example, by giving guests real-time access to wait times at attractions and restaurants, Disney could improve utilization of its facilities, allowing Disney to handle more guests without making new capital investments.
As others have noted, this could be part of NextGen, but we don't know what that will give us on our mobile devices. I would like to think that this will be free, open WiFi for all guests, but it's also possible that it would be limited to Disney-provided apps (for various platforms) only.