IP to the Hotel Guest Room

[rossiv]

Have any of you guys done IP Phones in hotel guest rooms before? Our management company is opening a new property in a little under two years, and we're considering it as an option.

We'd be using IP wherever possible, with analog only where necessary (elevator phones, fax machines, etc.). Looking at a 3300, not sure which specific model but I think our phone guy mentioned the MXe III for our size (100 rooms).

I've only been able to find TeleMatrix and VTech that make SIP phones specifically designed for guest rooms. Those, and Mitel's 5302/5304 phones. Does anyone else make any?

Many of our rooms will be two bedroom suites with a total of three phones in the room. Since each phone has to be an individual extension (no more pair sharing like with analog sets), how do you generally do extension numbers? Something like (Room 101) 6101, 7101, 8101? You'd have to have a ring group to ring all three at once as well, correct?

Less of the PBX side and more of an IT side, how would you handle users plugging their laptops, etc. into either the wall ports/switch ports on the phones? I can easily see someone thinking that the ports would also work for wired internet, and boom they're on the PBX network. Off of the top of my head, I can think of a NAC with MAC authentication on each switch, or just sticky MAC addresses for a more simple solution. That becomes an issue, though, when (not if) a phone needs to be replaced.

Any other best practices I'm missing out on? Those are my main questions.

Thanks in advance!

 

[SXWizard]

Mitel makes a great hospitality IP set. Check the Mitel 5505 IP Guest Phone. It has cordless remote handsets and supports a LAN port for the guest. The 3300 uses Suite Services to manage multiple lines to a room(s). The 3300 Hospitality Option supports PMS connectivity and the embedded voicemail has a Guest Mailbox setting. I would also suggest the MXe III as it supports a RAID HDD option and redundant power supplies.

 

[LoopyLou]

Yes Mitel makes their own 5505 guest room phone. Any SIP phone would do. For your question regarding multiple phones in a room. You could do suites, or a ring group but I think a MUG might be the best.

You can't duct tape stupid.

 

[rossiv]

So I got a demo 5304 from our dealer (we have another property with a 200 ICP MX that I'm testing it with) and my initial thoughts are positive. I do have one concern, though. When you call another guest room from the phone, it shows up with their name. This is less than desirable since so many things on property rely on last name / room number combination for verification. Is there any way to stop that functionality?

Our dealer didn't have any of the 5505 in stock, but I figure it'd have the same problem right?

 

[bobcheese]

There are others, Cetis (Telematrix owner company) has many brands of handset which are SIP certified with Mitel. VTech as mentioned, I also believe AEI & Bittel have a range of bedroom handsets that are on the SIP CoE list. As per SXWizard 5505 is a decent handset but is not the most modern of design.

Regards security, you have a couple of options. Depending on the handset type that you use, you can have the voice VLAN as a tagged VLAN on the edge port that is either discovered by LLDP/CDP or via the config file of a SIP handset. The untagged VLAN would then be either a dead VLAN or it could be the guest internet VLAN. You could go deeper than this and use AAA authentication based on MAC OUI so if the MAC of a device doesnt match a list in the auith serve they are denied access or dropped into an alternative VLAN.

 

[kwbMitel]

I have one site with SIP phones and they have proven to be quite a PITA.

They lose their config on a fairly regular basis and sometimes do not acquire their config automatically.

As for your Name issue, there are solutions for that in COS.

**********************************************
What's most important is that you realise ... There is no spoon.

 

[rossiv]

Any suggestions for the necessary changes in COS? I went through everything I could find on the 200 ICP related to Caller ID in a test COS and couldn't make the number disappear. Or is that just a 3300 thing?

 

[kwbMitel]

The COS option are in the low 500's

There is one to display name and there is one the send name.

You turn off the display name option for the room phones

**********************************************
What's most important is that you realise ... There is no spoon.

 

[rossiv]

I looked and disabled the obvious ones with no luck.
502 - Display ANI/DNIS/CLASS Information - Disabled
503 - Display CLASS Name - Disabled
508 - Station/Set: Show Internal Numbers on My Phone - Disabled

Still shows up.

On a related note, Any reason why MWI wouldn't work on a 5304 using Express Messenger?

 

[kwbMitel]

Check option 507 or 509

This option will be enabled and is for sending the internal name/number

Option 508 gets enabled on Admin sets to override the other and still display the name.

**********************************************
What's most important is that you realise ... There is no spoon.

 

[rossiv]

507 is enabled, 509 is disabled.

 

[kwbMitel]

What are the names of the options???

I'm going from memory here, cut me some slack.

**********************************************
What's most important is that you realise ... There is no spoon.

 

[rossiv]

507: Station/Set: Allow My Number to be Displayed
509: Display Caller ID for non-prime lines

 x Display ANI/DNIS/CLASS Information               x DISABLED x     502      x
 x Display CLASS Name                               x DISABLED x     503      x
 x SS420 Optional CLASS/ANI Display                 x DISABLED x     504      x
 x ONS Stations Support CLASS                       x DISABLED x     505      x
 x Station/Set: Show Internal Numbers on My Phone   x DISABLED x     508      x
 x Display Caller ID for non-prime lines            x DISABLED x     509      x
 x ONS Stations Support CLASS Visual Call Waiting   x DISABLED x     510      x
--snip--
 x Station/Set: Allow My Number to be Displayed     x ENABLED  x     507      x