The Customer
The Fairview Hotel Collection, owned and operated by Kanta Enterprises, offers travelers a luxurious variety of accommodations across the United Kingdom. It strives to deliver the ultimate hotel experience through a warm welcome, quality surroundings, and impeccable service. There is a room for every budget, from the affordable Ibis Hotels brand to the world-class Mercure hotel in Bloomsbury, one of London’s trendiest neighborhoods.
The Fairview Hotel Collection, owned and operated by Kanta Enterprises, offers travelers a luxurious variety of accommodations across the United Kingdom. It strives to deliver the ultimate hotel experience through a warm welcome, quality surroundings, and impeccable service. There is a room for every budget, from the affordable Ibis Hotels brand to the world-class Mercure hotel in Bloomsbury, one of London’s trendiest neighborhoods.
Business Challenges
To ensure its hotels remain a quality leader in the UK hospitality sector, the Fairview Hotel Collection decided to renovate and modernize its properties. As part of this effort, the aging communications infrastructure had to be completely rebuilt within a short timeframe. The Collection did not just want to update the legacy PBX servers across its many locations; it wanted an integrated, consistent system that would seamlessly connect rooms and sites. It also wanted to ensure its connection to the outside world would not be disrupted by the upcoming ISDN shutdown in the UK and the European Union. To achieve this, it needed a modern VoIP-based communications infrastructure. Finally, it was looking for modern UC features and effective cost control across all thirteen of its locations.
Sangoma Solutions
In collaboration with its Internet service provider, which also used Sangoma products and services, the Fairview Hotel Collection undertook a complete overhaul of its voice and data network. The hotels were entirely rewired, with guest rooms equipped with PoE cabling instead of older analog lines. This approach made it possible to move the voice network off ISDN infrastructure while keeping the network securely isolated from the outside world. With this new infrastructure, the hotels deployed FreePBX and PBXact IP PBX servers, as well as a VoIP intercom system to facilitate announcements and guest notifications. To complete the solution, every guest room, office, and public area was equipped with reliable Sangoma IP phones to ensure easy access to a phone for every user.
In collaboration with its Internet service provider, which also used Sangoma products and services, the Fairview Hotel Collection undertook a complete overhaul of its voice and data network. The hotels were entirely rewired, with guest rooms equipped with PoE cabling instead of older analog lines. This approach made it possible to move the voice network off ISDN infrastructure while keeping the network securely isolated from the outside world. With this new infrastructure, the hotels deployed FreePBX and PBXact IP PBX servers, as well as a VoIP intercom system to facilitate announcements and guest notifications. To complete the solution, every guest room, office, and public area was equipped with reliable Sangoma IP phones to ensure easy access to a phone for every user.
The Results
The hotel users immediately appreciated the change from the legacy phone system. Thanks to the PBXact and FreePBX architecture, the hotels now have a consistency in their communications systems that they did not have before. Using the PBXact/FreePBX platform, the hotels can share the same service plans while customizing the required features by extension. The owners and managers were very satisfied with the hardware price, as the total cost of their systems was far lower than that of competing products. The hotels’ IT team especially appreciated how easy it was to contact Sangoma to quickly get answers to questions and solutions to problems arising at different sites, while work was underway at several hotels simultaneously. Overall, the Fairview Hotel Collection, together with Sangoma, was able to improve its communications and keep guest satisfaction at a record high while saving money and gaining access to features and support that its former business phone system did not provide.