I'm bidding for a Hampton Inn and while looking through the PBX Specs(Pretty Much Hilton Specs)I notice they want an access code for (Local 9)
(LD 8) (Internal 7). Do they mean they want the room Ext's to start with 7? Or ????? Thanks

Yes - that means that they want all room numbers preceded by a 7 - pretty useless unless they have over 7 floors - although it does give you the option to use single digit dialing for certain things without having to wait for the dialing conflict timer.

It is the new standard for the room exts to start with a 7. The cumbersome thing is your auto-attendant has to remind callers to dial '7' plus the room number.

The 7 prefix started back when all the chains were requiring two lines in the rooms. The 7xxx was line 1 for voice and 6xxx was line 2 for modem... remember modems? Seems strange that the same IT geeks who are specifying CAT6 cabling "in preparation for VoIP" can't see there's no longer a need for the prefixes.

Adding a 7 and a 6 in front of a room number causes problems with the PMS data string since all room numbers on the PMS must also be set to 7+ and 6+. And when a room is checked in as 7101 room 6101 is not check in. So calls can be made from line one but not line 2. Let the customer know and I hope the PMS software has a fix within their software.

That situation is fixed by using the 'suite services' feature in the Mitel system. Associating the 2 extensions together also handles the forwarding, wakeups, etc.