The guestroom telephone poses a dilemma for many hoteliers. While an increasing number of guests (probably a majority) rely on cellphones for communication, some still want a guestroom phone to communicate with hotel staff, especially during an emergency, or to call outside the hotel. Hoteliers seeking to satisfy the needs of all guests while minimizing costs have a number of options.

One decision is whether to migrate their phone technology to the Internet or remain analog. VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) is one option that is slowly being adopted by the lodging industry. VoIP allows a hotel to use its data network to handle voice traffic, reducing costs and management headaches.

“VoIP is prevalent in limited fashion,” says Jose Quiros, COO of Cetis, Inc., the business telephone company that markets three product lines — Scitec, Teledex and TeleMatrix — to the hotel industry. “Most, if not all, PBXs installed over the past few years are fully IP capable. VoIP in the guestroom has been slowly increasing and would have grown faster had the financial crisis not put a hold on many new projects.”

VoIP is naturally more prevalent in new-builds than in existing properties. As Quiros says, the advantage of VoIP in new construction is a single cabling infrastructure. “The cons,” he says, “are the higher cost of equipment and lack of industry standards.” Cetis and its brands offer a variety of telephone units in both analog and IP configurations and plans several product introductions at the upcoming HITEC trade show in June.

“However, there will always be guestroom telecommunications devices,” he says.