Houston Airports, one of North America’s largest public airport systems, is modernizing guest connectivity by expanding its relationship with Hewlett Packard Enterprise by adopting a Wi-Fi 6E-enabled HPE Aruba Networking solution. The deployment will improve wireless and location-based services the organization delivers to its approximately 60 million annual passengers and visitors across its George Bush Intercontinental Airport and the William P. Hobby Airport.
As an international gateway to the south-central United States and Latin America, Houston Airports contributes more than $36 billion to the local economy and provides more than 190,000 jobs. Hosting over 30 passenger airlines, Houston Airports is ensuring it can meet the mobile experience expectations of travelers by rolling out free, high-performance guest Wi-Fi connectivity and debuting a step-by-step wayfinding app to help travelers get to their gate, baggage claim and airport amenities.
Additionally, Houston Airports deployed HPE Aruba Networking Beacons to provide additional location-based telemetry data in support of its new mobile app, which was built using The Aruba Meridian App Platform. This app provides travelers with a range of stress-relieving insights, including detailed wayfinding with estimated walking times, real-time parking space availability and locating where a person’s vehicle is parked within a structure. Other features include previewing security checkpoint wait times, visualizing restaurant and shop locations, and receiving real-time flight information.
Houston Airports is also leveraging its HPE Aruba Networking APs as an IoT (Internet of Things) platform, which includes the ability to perform IoT gateway functionality for Bluetooth, Zigbee and Wi-Fi-enabled devices. An immediate project is making restrooms smarter. Using these IoT sensors, Houston Airports is gathering and transmitting the data needed to adjust facilities maintenance schedules in real time. This permits more closely matching maintenance with the variable foot traffic created by the changes in airline arrivals and departures. Houston Airports is also developing related IoT data feeds for its mobile app to help travelers pinpoint restrooms with availability and avoid occupied facilities.
The organization’s new Wi-Fi also contributes to Houston Airports sustainability initiative. It provides wireless networking infrastructure with built-in power-saving capabilities, helps IT operate efficiently and enables further development of location analytics to supply data for optimizing spaces in support of reducing energy consumption.
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