Boavista Palace: 72 apartments, 72 isolated Wi-Fi networks

Boavista Palace is in one of Porto's leading business districts, near Carolina Michaëlis metro station, and offers a terrace and gym. The 72 apartments, in studio and one-bedroom layouts, focus on design, premium finishes, indirect lighting, soundproofing and welcome amenities.

With a product like this, Wi-Fi has a direct bearing on guest satisfaction and loyalty, online reviews, length of stay and the teams' daily operations.

Serviced apartments, hotels, student residences and co-living spaces share the same technical challenges:

1. Privacy per unit: each apartment needs its own network, with no possibility of access between neighbours.
2. Bandwidth management: limits per apartment so that one unit does not degrade the experience of the others.
3. Coverage across several floors and blocks: materials, layouts and distances require planning to eliminate dead zones.
4. Protected internet access: a security gateway and, wherever possible, connection redundancy.

The cheap alternative, common in accommodation, is to put a home router in each unit. It seems to solve privacy, but it creates 72 unmanaged devices, 72 networks competing for the same channels and no visibility of what is failing. When a guest complains, someone has to go to the apartment and restart the device.

In a managed network, privacy comes from the VLAN, not the hardware. The access points are shared and coordinated with each other, channels are planned for the whole building and the management team can see every access point and every connected client from one console. A problem is identified remotely, often before the guest notices.

The role of monitoring

In a building with dozens of units occupied by different people every week, the load on the network changes constantly. Alerting warns when an access point stops responding, when an internet connection drops or when a floor starts to lose performance. That information is what allows action before the complaint, rather than after the online review.

• Real privacy Every guest is on their own network, with no visibility of the other units.
• Fair service for everyone Bandwidth managed per apartment prevents abuse and general slowdowns.
• Fewer complaints Consistent coverage across all 8 floors and both blocks.
• Greater availability The security gateway and redundancy reduce interruptions.
• Infrastructure ready to grow Segmentation makes diagnosis and changes simpler.

To keep the network healthy, ongoing support was planned under an IT Unlimited contract, with monitoring, alerting and proactive support. Plans range from Essential to Premium and Premium 365; only the latter includes 24/7 support and monitoring, with on-site support also at nights, weekends and public holidays. Find out more about the IT Unlimited managed services model.

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DataRoad is a premium MSP headquartered in Alfragide with support across the whole country. For 11 years it has managed the infrastructure of public bodies, embassies, hotels, clinics and demanding companies, with 232 clients under contract and Top 5% PME certification awarded by scoring.pt. For networks, it covers the full cycle: survey, design, certified structured cabling, switching, firewall and Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7 with centralised management.

• Helpdesk with ticketing and contractual response times
• Networks and IT for the public sector, with experience across eight public entities

Do you run apartments, residences or tourist accommodation with many units? We assess the current network and design business Wi-Fi with per-unit isolation and ongoing management.

More than 10 workstations · support contract · remote, on-site and telephone support. Call +351 211 459 950 * or write to sales@dataroad.pt.

*Call to a Portuguese landline.