I'm doing a cabling bid for a hotel that is going to be built very soon, it's a 96 room hotel + 10 office stations.
The owner is looking into doing an all digital or all VoIP system for the hotel. The system he is currently looking at really has no PMS interface, the front desk just has to look at the call accounting system, and add in the LD minutes to the rooms bill.
I know ESI doesn't really make a hotel/motel switch, but do I dare propose an ESI system based on the situation. Right now the VoIP Cisco phones he wants in each room are about $600 (his cost).
I know ESI can't power a message light on an analog phone, but it can on a 24/48 key.
The only phone system's I've done in hotel/mtu/mdu's before are Mitel and NEC. But they had interface's for the PMS.
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Mistake. He should be doing all analog phones for the customers that need to use either a fax or a modem to do their work. Never underestimate having analog lines because some people will need them. Analog phones are also cheaper to maintain AND usually tough. I would wire for voice and data unless they are going wireless.
yeah I too found it a little nuts having no analog lines.
I used to work for a few Hotel broadband Providers (E-Comm Networks and IBahn/Stsn) So I've been in hundred's of hotels, all of which, used traditional analog lines.
Plus you can buy something like a Vodavi hotel 2 Line analog phone for under $60 compared to $600 for the cisco equipment he is looking at.
His plans call for having two drops of CAT6 in each room (bedside and desk). I tried to tell him to use CAT5e, with two drops @ the desk(voice and Data) and 1 at the bed (just voice). As this should last years. Even if he did want to go VoIP in the future the CAt5e would handle it.
No kidding. There is no advantage to having VOIP phones in the rooms. They will never move. You can't loop VOIP phones. You can't do analog connections. FXS converters abosolutly suck for analog devices. The first time there are voice quality issues heads will roll because business people won't deal with it. Quite honeslty I think he will lose business and money.
We were recently in the same situation, much larger hotel (briefly saw $$$ signs) but after doing the research we knew that we were in over our heads matter if we looked at ESI or Toshiba lines. Not enough analog ports and didn't want to rig something!
Sometimes you have to just walk away! Or at least refer!
I'm not sure of the ESI products for this type of arrangement, but I can tell you for sure that Mitel solutions work pretty good, once you understand that there is way too much programming involved! LOL I installed an SX200 ICP in a 72 room hotel that has 2 different extensions in each room, 12 other stations, and both wired and wireless network. Once I got past the programming issues, it seems to work great, and the interfaces between the PMS and the switch and voice mail are now working perfectly. BTW, all room phones and several of the other stations are SLT's.
And WHY??? does he want to put fragile system phones in each room?? I am having a great deal of trouble coming up with any good reason to run digital stations in the rooms and several good reasons why he should stick with analogs. 1) expense 2) fax/modem 3) durability. There is a reason everyone does it that way. Run, do not walk, away from this one.
