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SMARTreport
© photo: Cisco
result, people who support PABXs have
become a very specialized breed. This
can translate into higher costs and a
limited talent pool. IP PABXs, in contrast,
are designed to work as an integral part
of a data network. It’s relatively easy for
an individual with data network expertise
to learn the incremental skills needed to
manage and maintain an IP PABX. The
reverse cannot be said of a phone system
technician because the domains are quite
different. The need for data networking
expertise is widespread and very
obvious, so many individuals possess
these skills.
Technology competitiveness. PABXs are
designed to last for 10 to 15 years. This
sounds very appealing, because data
networks certainly are not. The flip side,
though, is that a property which buys a
traditional PABX is locked into PABX
technology for that same 10 to 15 years.
As we’ve mentioned above,
manufacturers aren’t putting any more
development resources into these
products, so buyers will find themselves
falling farther and farther behind their
competitors who invest in IP-based
systems, where the pace of innovation is
feverish.
Interchangeability of components. With
traditional PABXs, components can’t be
interchanged from one manufacturer to
another. Mitel cards won’t work on Nortel
systems; Avaya digital phones can’t be
used with NEC. Once a customer chooses
a manufacturer, he’s locked in for the
useful life of the equipment. With IP PABXs
the picture is different. The IP PABX is
40 / Hotel SMARTreport • October 2007 – April 2008
actually a controller which works with
routers, data switches, gateways and IP
telephones to provide voice
communication services. All of these
devices communicate with each other
using internet protocol. This means that
the controller can be one manufacturer’s
product while the routers and gateways
are another’s, with data switches and
phones coming from yet a third or a
fourth. The customer is not locked in to a
single vendor, and as better products
become available, possibly from
companies which may not even exist
today, they can be put into service with
little or no disruption.
Application possibilities. The openness
described above, and the fact that the
underlying data communication
technology is based on internet protocol,
means that innovative software
companies like ours can create new
services that run on or with IP PABXs.
With an IP PABX, we and our customers
can dream up and actually implement
new guest and staff services which can
bring the phone system back into the
strategic and financial mainstream of the
hotel.
The New World of Services
Our expectations of telephony in hotels
have been lowered to the extent that all
we demand of it is dial tone, wake up
calls and similar services. But why
shouldn’t we have higher expectations?
Shouldn’t we expect it to help us sell
rooms? To personalize our guest services?
COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES
To bring in incremental revenues?
Shouldn’t it give us a competitive
advantage on RFPs? Communication is a
central need of every human being.
Instead of being a marginal service,
almost an afterthought, shouldn’t our
communication system help us build better
bridges with our guests around their
communication needs?
IP telephony brings the toolset which
makes this possible, and companies like
ours use these tools to create the
innovative services which are the promise
of the technology. These are the basic
building blocks of the new services, as
provided by IP telephony.
1. IP telephones.
Many models come with screens capable
of displaying visual content. Some offer
colour, some touch screen capabilities.
There are also programming tools which
allow input to be collected from the user.
What results is the possibility of creating
interactive applications which can
provide information to guests and provide
many convenient self-service
opportunities.
2. Telephony interface software.
This is a set of programming tools which
allows an outside application to control
what the IP PABX does and how it does it.
For example, conference calling is a need
which many hotel guests have. However,
on most phones, people actually need to
be trained the procedures for initiating a
conference call, so it’s impractical to offer
this as a service on guest room phones.
With the interface software mentioned
above, however, a programmer can
create a conference calling application
which guests will be able to use without
any training, much as they can use hotel
voice mail without any training.
3. Superior data communication
capabilities.
IP technology excels at moving data
transparently between systems which may
be based on completely different
operating systems and programming
languages. In the hotel industry, systems
have always had difficulty communicating
due to proprietary interfaces,
technologies and methods of
communication. The result has been that
hotel data and communication systems
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