Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Hotel goes wireless with voice/data IP net

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 10:02:06 -0400

Hotel goes wireless with voice/data IP net

By MATT HAMBLEN
JULY 11, 2003

Hotel Commonwealth in Boston opened last month with an IP network infrastructure
that supports voice and text messaging to in-hotel wireless phones and other
interactive applications for guests, all relying on the Session Initiation
Protocol (SIP).
A few other U.S. hotels, including the Sheraton Sonoma County in Petaluma, Calif.,
have deployed combined voice and data IP networks. But Hotel Commonwealth's use of
the emerging SIP interoperability standard appears to be a first in the
hospitality industry, said Brian Riggs, an analyst at Current Analysis Inc. in
Sterling, Va.

Paris-based Alcatel SA this week announced that it provided the IP switches that
support SIP at the heart of the hotel's network. Alcatel also provided its Alcatel
Personal Wireless Telephony phones.

In addition to the wireless service, Hotel Commonwealth's guest rooms have
wireline IP phones that can receive text and graphical messages on 3-by-3-in.
screens. Those phones are made by Woburn, Mass.-based Pingtel Corp.
Timothy Kirwan, managing director of the independently operated hotel, said the IP
voice and data technology was chosen over a traditional private branch exchange
(PBX).

An IP-based system that supports SIP offers more flexibility for adding features
or applications, and it "won't be obsolete in three to five years," Kirwan said.
Cisco Systems Inc. was the other finalist for the switch deal.

"We were very concerned about the intuitiveness of the technology," Kirwan said,
since most hotel guests stay less than 48 hours and won't tolerate having to
master complex products. But the IP devices appear to be catching on, he said,
noting that he saw guests carrying Alcatel's wireless phones on the first day the
hotel was open.

Alcatel's commitment to SIP was an important decision that adds a layer of
standardization to the hotel's choice to go with IP technology, said Stewart
Randall, principal consultant at Communications Design Associates Inc. in Norwood,
Mass. Randall acted as the lead IT consultant on the project, starting in 1998.

SIP has yet to be formally ratified by the Internet Engineering Task Force. But
the use of the technology frees Hotel Commonwealth to replace its Alcatel and
Pingtel phones, if necessary, with other devices that support the standard,
Randall said. In addition, other network devices and applications, such as
point-of-sale or call accounting systems, should interoperate with Alcatel's
OmniPCX Enterprise IP-PBX switches.

Randall said the hotel's IT infrastructure cost more than $1 million to set up.
Despite its investments in the IP network, high-speed Internet access and other
high-tech amenities, the hotel isn't tacking daily user fees onto its room rates,
Kirwan said.

http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2003/0,4814,82971,00.html

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