Travel Technology - New Steve Wynn hotel to have VoIP phones in every room

See http://www.avaya.com/gcm/master-usa/en-us/corporate/pressroom/pressreleases/2005/pr-050502d.htm

4000 VoIP phones! I hope someone gives us a technical trip report soon. I'll have to try this hotel sooner or later.

I believe The Borgata in ACY already has has this - Cisco phones in every room.

They were cool, but a little annoying at the same time. Sometimes there are delays in the system and you have to wait.

Here is a link to a picture of the actual phone from the Wynn.... looks pretty cool

http://www.dangie.com/fey/wynn3/pages/IMG_0472_jpg.htm

I have seen a lot of big companies convert over to the VoIP phones lately, so it doesnt surprise me to see new hotels doing the same. Good idea in my opinion.

I have used one while working as a remote project manager. I was actually an extension of the corporate office even though I was 1000s of miles away. The technology worked great most of the time, though we did have a rash of server issues from our providers and our Cisco phones really did not like Linksys routers.

I hate to sound like an idiot but what is the advantage for the customer?

As you may be able to see from the photo link, the hotel can program the screen to show whatever they want. They can customize the phone for each guest room. Say a big conference is going on. All the registered conference attendees can have their own menu. It can also do web browsing and video conferencing, but I don't know if Wynn's will offer that. They could also allow guests to forward calls to a cell phone, but I'm not sure if they will do that.

As for the Cisco references, that doesn't apply as this is an Avaya implementation. Avaya is decended from Bell Labs and they do know voice. Cisco knows data, but their voice implementations are not quite up to Avaya's level yet.

I have used one while working as a remote project manager. I was actually an extension of the corporate office even though I was 1000s of miles away. The technology worked great most of the time, though we did have a rash of server issues from our providers and our Cisco phones really did not like Linksys routers.

Anyone spending the bucks for a call manager should have something better than a linksys for routing :).

Of course, if you are using your softphone behind someone else's linksys router, this rule does not apply.

I hate to sound like an idiot but what is the advantage for the customer?
It's more a fact that it's vastly cheaper for the hotel -- esp. in local access taxes.

FWIW, the entire City of Dallas government, including Police and Fire, is VoIP. 4000 in a hotel is nothing!

As for the Cisco references, that doesn't apply as this is an Avaya implementation. Avaya is decended from Bell Labs and they do know voice. Cisco knows data, but their voice implementations are not quite up to Avaya's level yet.

You know much more than I do, but I can not tell the difference at all between the new Cisco network and the regular phones we used to have except that the Cisco phones have so so so many more cool features. And they work.

It's more a fact that it's vastly cheaper for the hotel -- esp. in local access taxes.

FWIW, the entire City of Dallas government, including Police and Fire, is VoIP. 4000 in a hotel is nothing!

That assumes that you use an IP network to bypass the traditional POTS/trunks to/thru the actual phone network. If they have someone providing dialtone and long-distance via IP trunks, they might get out of local taxes (this is an issue that is still being hashed out state-by-state, and I'm not sure what Nevada's take is).

Within the hotel, the big savings are in wiring (you only need a single Cat-5/6 run to each room if you are smart enough to run the internet access out of the back of the phone) and administration (you should never have to actually touch each phone to change functions).

As for the Cisco references, that doesn't apply as this is an Avaya implementation. Avaya is decended from Bell Labs and they do know voice. Cisco knows data, but their voice implementations are not quite up to Avaya's level yet.

Depends on what you want to do with the phones. If you don't need call center (routing groups, trees, etc), Cisco tends to be better. If you want whizbang apps to run on the phone, Cisco wins (sometimes). If you don't want to "forklift" out an old PBX, Avaya wins hands down (particularly if you are a lucent/avaya shop to begin with). If you have extensive call-center functionality, Avaya is light years ahead. I've been stressing the call center functionality to Cisco for years. They don't seem to listen very well, and I just dropped in about 5000 handsets across a bunch of locations along with a bunch of media servers and gateways that say "Avaya" on the front because of it :o.

Anyone spending the bucks for a call manager should have something better than a linksys for routing :)


Exactly. Linksys routers are not enterprise quality.

Exactly. Linksys routers are not enterprise quality.

They had an excellent deal on A+G wireless routers when I purchased it for my home office. I also added a small DLink as the primary router for use when my laptop is "hardwired" and the VoIP phone, which is connect to a server from our provider in Dallas.

Exactly. Linksys routers are not enterprise quality.
I think the end-user was referring to his home office that was using a Linksys router. I think we ALL know to leave it to "daddy" Cisco to handle the real job. :D

-JC

I think the end-user was referring to his home office that was using a Linksys router. I think we ALL know to leave it to "daddy" Cisco to handle the real job. :D

-JC

Indeed!