VoIP Checks Into The Sheraton
Equally important, while this project entailed upgrading existing equipment, Starwood was looking to determine the feasibility of deploying pure IP-telephone systems when it builds new hotels going forward, rather than installing traditional circuit-switched PBXs.
"We wanted to see if the technology really works, and this is Starwood's largest hotel," says Joseph O'Connor, Starwood's area manager for property technology.
To be sure, like many engagements with customers the size of Starwood, which had $771 million in revenue last year, the deal was fraught with challenges, such as infrastructure issues and the fact that the hotel was already undergoing significant renovations; Starwood did not want to risk any downtime of its voice or data switches that could impact customers or revenue. Certainly it couldn't do it without the help of its longtime solution provider, NextiraOne. "It's like changing the tires on a car while you're driving it," O'Connor says.
Nortel Paves the Way
Starwood first took an interest in IP telephony two years ago as it became more suitable for mainstream use and could help reduce telecommunications costs. Its targeted buildings--the New York Sheraton and the Sheraton Manhattan--already had traditional Nortel Meridian Option 81C PBXs, one of the largest offered by Nortel. Given that the Meridian PBXs are upgradable, the hotels would be able to keep their existing PBXs and effectively IP-enable them with Nortel interfaces.
Nortel made the initial pitch last year, and then brought in partner NextiraOne--the service provider that already maintains the PBXs at the hotels."Starwood is a strategic client, and NextiraOne is the lead partner," says Bill Wood, Nortel's sales manager on the account.
Sealing the deal was a promotion Nortel offered in the hopes of bringing more enterprise customers on board; that defrayed all of the initial upgrade costs for Starwood and made it easier for O'Connor to convince management to give it serious consideration.
"[Nortel] had to dig into their pockets to do their piece," O'Connor says. Specifically, the vendor agreed to foot the cost of providing 100 phone sets and some updates to the switch. That saved Starwood an estimated six-figure price tag.
To further justify VoIP, NextiraOne and Nortel together conducted an ROI and feasibility study. That was critical because despite Starwood's interest in VoIP, there was no room in its IT budget to invest in it, says Derrick Hart, NextiraOne's strategic account manager. "We had to do a detailed ROI study with Joe [O'Connor], his team and the people at Starwood corporate to show them this technology was going to save the hotel money," he says.
Adds O'Connor, "We were obviously worried about savings and reliability. We wanted to know how the whole system worked in conjunction with a legacy PBX." Also important was voice quality and what would have to be done to the LAN to make IP telephony work.
In performing the analysis, NextiraOne also discovered a problem. "They found some holes in our network," O'Connor recalls. The biggest one was in the link between its two properties. The data networks were connected by half-duplex 10-Mbps links. If the data network was going to carry voice reliably, Starwood needed full duplex links.
O'Connor ruled out laying dark fiber or short-haul wireless links for reliability reasons. The most practical solution, his team decided, was Verizon's Transparent LAN services, a managed bandwidth offering. However, that required the implementation of Layer-3 switches to connect the hotels to Verizon's network. Interestingly, the Sheraton team bought the Nortel Layer-3 switches from another Nortel partner--Dell.
"Our relationship with NextiraOne is just voice," O'Connor says. "I know of late they have been selling data products, but I typically buy my data equipment from the people I've purchased PCs from."
Work In Progress
For the Meridian PBXs to connect to a data network or any IP connection, a software upgrade to Succession 3.0 was in order. To date, the hotel has slowly implemented the IP voice sets in conference rooms and in the offices of key service representatives. Those phone sets allow users to set up teleconferences from PCs and easily move them to other rooms on the network, among other features. "So far, it hasn't failed us," O'Connor says.
For now, Starwood is holding off on installing IP phones in guest rooms for several reasons. One is security. If the phone is connected to an Ethernet network, what's to stop a guest from unplugging the phone, connecting his laptop and getting into the data network? Then there's the cost of the sets, which are in the range of $500 each.
"We can put a good analog phone in a room for $50," O'Connor says. Nortel officials agree that is the key challenge moving forward. Nortel's Wood says it would be ideal for Preferred Starwood guests to be able to use the new sets to order room service without talking to anyone. "I think they know there are benefits there," Wood says.
Also, Nortel and NextiraOne are hoping Starwood will deploy the MCS 5100 multimedia server, which would allow IP-based conferencing and collaboration using the VoIP network, and the Net6 developer kit, which would allow NextiraOne to develop XML-based apps using the system. "We just want to make sure what we have works before moving forward," O'Connor says.
So for now, the focus will be on the WAN. That includes reducing telecom costs and potentially bringing other Starwood properties in midtown Manhattan into the mix. But at least the initial results are promising. "We're happy with the product," O'Connor says. "It's a viable solution for anybody."