VoIP Gateways & Their Role in Cost Savings for the Hospitality Industry

The global hospitality industry has thousands of on premise phone systems (or PBXs) which are 10-25 years old and are in desperate need of a modern replacement. The industry has delayed the replacement of these systems because historically, replacements did not offer any new features or benefits over that of the older systems already deployed. The revenue that properties receive from guests making calls, using the property phones, continues to diminish with the growth of cellular phones. A new phone system solution would need to be cost effective, as well as offer clear benefits to the sites and owners. With today’s advancements with IP and the Internet, there are finally viable solutions available which balance cost effectiveness and feature rich demands. For example, hotels can:

• • Connect their phone system to a SIP trunk, eliminating their expensive local PSTN provider, saving on monthly phone bills

• • Replace their existing legacy phone system with an IP-based phone system (or IP-PBX) to take advantage of flexibility, control and advanced features

• • Eliminate the on-premise phone system completely and connect hotel phones to a hosted provider solution, over the Internet, saving on cost and maintenance

The roadblock to any of these three solutions being cost effective, is virtually all hotels using old phone systems use analog phones on property, which are not compatible with these IP solutions. Replacing all the currently working phones would be a large investment. However, there is a simple solution to this issue: use a VoIP Gateway. All the analog phones and the Internet connects directly to the gateway, which provides a seamless connection between the two disparate networks. And since VoIP gateways cost a fraction of the price of replacing analog phones and wiring, this makes them a critical piece in allowing hotels to modernize their telephony infrastructure.