Xorcom Solution

Two XR3000 IP-PBX with TwinStar for dual-server redundancy, and two Astribanks (XR0047 and XR0010) to connect to the PRI and PSTN.

Overview

One of the property’s bungalows,which required
a cost-effective connection to the main hotel.

Filitheyo Island Resort is a 3 kilometer spread premium island resort in Maldives, with 147 water villas and bungalows. The property had been using a faulty, old Alcatel PABX system which interconnected the 147 independent villas with the main hotel building. Half of the villas and luxury homes remained disconnected due to hardware failure on the Alcatel PABX, and guests had to use other (costly) means of communication to reach the hotel. The Filitheyo IT department was planning to deploy an Asterisk® -based telephony solution, and the management decided to go for the Xorcom IP PBX solution, because it was the only Asterisk-based telephony solution integrated with Micros Opera PMS (Property Management System). The entire project, connecting and configuring 147 villas, plus the integration with Micros Opera, took only 7 days on-site.

Customer Requirements

Communications requirement of the resort

Filitheyo’s most important requirement was the integration of an Asterisk solution with Micros Opera PMS. Another important requirement was a stable hardware platform to connect 147 villas (analog extensions) spread across a 3 kilometer radius, 8 analog lines and administration IP phones.

Additionally, Filitheyo needed all enterprise telephony features such as conference, voice mail, ring groups, call forwarding, and time based routing, for use in the back-office and administration departments. The goal was to facilitate a ‘single vendor’ IP PBX solution, which would include all the different components of a hotel telephony system.

Proposed Solution

Xorcom integration partner Techné proposed the Xorcom XE3000, an IP PBX with 16 FXO ports, along with six Xorcom Astribank channel banks, each with 32 FXS analog ports, and Xorcom’s Complete Concierge suite with licenses for 147 rooms. During the first four days of implementation Techné created the IP PBX dialing rules, extensions for the villas and administration staff, CO connectivity and add-on features.

All these tasks were carried out while the old PABX continued to function, untouched.

Days 4 and 5 were spent studying and fixing the existing cable paths, terminations and new connectivity requirements.

During days 6 and 7 the PABX functionality was switched to Xorcom, the channel banks were connected to the villas, and the CO lines were configured for the Xorcom equipment, which was integrated with the Micros Opera PMS.

Results

The old analog PBX system had many drawbacks; many features were not available due to license limitations. Hardware failure was a major concern, and replacement of hardware components required a long wait period. The new Xorcom solution offers a wide range of license-free telephony features. Staff and guests are no longer bound to the number of ports and licenses in the PABX. The flexibility of Move-Add-Change (MAC) is now possible without a vendor lock-in. PMS integration is now native to the IP PBX (with the old PABX this was only possible through a communication port and third party software was required to connect the PABX with the PMS).

Conclusion

“Xorcom made our IP Telephony transition very smooth; the new VoIP phone system gives more personalized treatment to our guests, facilitates better service opportunities to our staff, and provides better control to the technical team. But the real beauty is the low entry cost when compared to the maintenance cost of the old Alcatel PABX.” – Abdulla Jabir, Filitheyo Resort Manager

“Xorcom adds value to our business since a reliable telephony system is a very important part of the hospitality business. The underlying Asterisk telephony features are extremely useful in a business segment like hospitality, and Xorcom’s Linux-based system architecture is super cool for technical management. The PMS integration was the decision maker; the fact that the Xorcom solution included PMS integration made switching to Xorcom an easy choice.” – Filitheyo IT Department