Originally Posted by bhatnasx

The problem that hotels have is that PBX systems are expensive as hell to operate. Back in the day (and by that, I mean before cell phones were everywhere), operating an PBX system was a cost-neutral (and sometimes profitable) because the amount spent on outfitting every single hotel room with an extension & maintaining it & the ability to make outbound calls was off-set by people actually using the phones.

Nowadays, you can't get rid of the in-room phone (because some people still use it - at least to recieve calls & to call room service, etc), but the operating costs have gone up significantly.

So, even though it's 2009, hotel room calls just aren't cheap & I seriously doubt they ever will be. I know that Marriott's got the Wired for Business option at full service hotels where they give you internet, local, and domestic long distance in the US on a daily basis charge, but I don't know if such packages are available internationally.