Lots of interesting discussion, but I’m surprised not more on the actual policy.

I agree speakerphone is not the best option for calls, but in this case my headset was dead and I needed to take notes, and I also remind everyone I was in the “privacy” of my room...speakerphones are a definite “no” in public areas like lobbies or lounges. Everyone’s points are noted, however, and I will be even more careful in the future.

An interesting update is that when checking out today, I asked someone at the front desk if they had heard about my “incident”, and they said no, and were surprised for a bunch of reasons. One thing that came out in that conversation is that they have different versions of the noise complaint letter, and it seems I got the “wrong” version given the circumstances. So that makes me feel a bit better that the actual policy for my situation might be more reasonable. Separately, another staff member told me that security couldn’t hear my call from the hall when standing directly outside my door (admittedly a different vantage point than the room next door).

So like I said, this ended just fine, and as always, I’ve learned from the varied perspectives on this forum I consider this an anomaly (second noise issue after 4000+ nights, with the other a reasonable request to turn down the TV late at night, handled very cordially by the guest himself) but it will help me to continue to be vigilant and polite to my neighbors.