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NEC Group Installs IP Phone System Using Wireless LAN/PHS, in Osaka Hotel

September 1, 2003 (TOKYO) -- NEC Corp and NEC System Integration & Construction Ltd announced Aug. 27 that they installed in the Hotel Nikko Osaka an IP phone system deploying a wireless LAN and PHS phones.

Hotel employees can not only use the PHS phone as an extension phone within the hotel but can also check the cleaning conditions of guest rooms via a browser in real time. The system has been running since April 21, 2003.

This IP phone system is installed in both of the main building of Hotel Nikko Osaka, which has 640 guest rooms, and the annex building that has the company's business departments. The two buildings are located about 20m apart, and are linked via IEEE802.11b wireless LAN equipment. "This wireless section has a capacity of at least 20 lines of voice traffic," an NEC official said.

In the main building, NEC's IP-PBX "APEX7600i" is installed for dealing with IP data, and is connected with a LAN and the newly-installed multiple PHS indoor base station equipment. On the LAN, are voice mail servers, Web servers for dealing with the guest room cleaning status information, and wireless LAN equipment for connecting the two buildings. On the other hand, in the business departments, there is only the LAN with no phone wiring. PHS indoor base stations are required as well with connections to the LAN.

These indoor base stations have the function of converting voice signals to IP. For example, when a person in the annex building makes an extension call via the PHS phone, then the voice is converted to VoIP data at the nearest indoor base station.

This VoIP data is sent to the main building's IP-PBX via a LAN and the wireless LAN equipment located in the annex building. IP-PBX is designed to control the communication to deliver the VoIP data to an indoor base station.

At the end the VoIP data is reverted to the voice signal to reach the target PHS phone.

Hotel Nikko Osaka is currently using 140 PHS phones, and accommodates about 150 outside lines and more than 1,100 inside lines in the APEX7600i system. The APEX7600i is connected with the fixed phones of all guest rooms for guests to use voice mail.

In addition, Hotel Nikko Osaka newly introduced an Internet-connect very high bit rate digital subscriber line (VDSL) in 200 guest rooms. The employed VDSL modem can provide a downlink data rate of a maximum 51.2Mbps and an uplink of 6.4Mbps.

Related links:
- NEC's press release (in Japanese)
- Hotel Nikko Osaka

Read this story in Japanese.

(Yasukazu Sugiyama, Staff Editor, Nikkei Communications)

http://neasia.nikkeibp.com/wcs/leaf?CID=onair/asabt/news/264475