In recent years, it has been the hotel industry norm to upgrade telephone systems for improved customer services. Hotel Okura, a Tokyo landmark for over 30 years, is no exception. In October 1999, the hotel installed one of Japan’s largest hotel telephone systems, which incorporates the PHS network system to cover the entire premises.
Centrally located across the U.S. Embassy and close to the business districts, Hotel Okura has attracted dignitaries from both the governmental and business sectors as guests.

Hotel Okura’s new telephone system (see Fig. 1) comprises one of Japan’s largest PHS network systems, as well as Japan’s first hotel-use PC console system, voice mail system, “hands-free” digital cordless telephones for all guest rooms, and various servers controlling all of these, which are built around a PBX -- NEC Corp.’s large-capacity communications server “APEX7600MMX.” For business needs of customers, each guest room is also equipped with a facsimile and a data communications line switchable to analog or ISDN. In addition, backbone LANs are made up of IP (Internet Protocol) networks interconnected with the servers and the PBX.
The PHS network system comprises 500 PHS terminals and 180 PHS CSs (Cell Stations) that cover both inside and outside the hotel buildings including parking spaces. PHS terminals are mainly carried by customer service staff and can be rented out to customers during events and other occasions.



With PHS terminals, the staff can now access guest room information and staff’s location information, display callers’ names and their sections, and make regular calls while moving about.
Prior to the telephone system installation, the customer service staff carried pagers to contact each others. PHS terminals have enabled them to call back without the need to run to nearby fixed telephones and to contact or give directions realtime by referring to the callers’ whereabouts, their names and sections on the display.
The guest information search, one of the customized functions, allows the staff to search and display the names of guests, whether they are in or out, their check-out status, room-cleaning status and so on from anywhere in the hotel by dialing special two-digit numbers followed by room numbers (see Fig. 2). For instance, the staff can check the name of the guest and provide high-level, attentive service to the guest in providing room service.
Such information regarding guests are saved on the servers; yet, to shorten the display time on PHS terminals, the PBX is designed to copy and hold the information through LANs.

Hotel Okura has 33 banquet halls of various sizes, which serve as venues for international conferences, receptions, wedding parties and other events. On such occasions, PHS terminals are rented out to the event staff to enable smooth contacts among them and the hotel staff.
In introducing the new telephone system, the hotel worked very closely with NEC to ensure improved customer services. NEC has a long history of designing some 2,000 hotel telephone systems in Japan and of installing more than 3,000 PBX-PHS systems. Installation of a new hotel telephone system requires revamping of the entire telephone network of the hotel, from main telephone lines in all hotel buildings to extensions in all the guest rooms. Hotel Okura and NEC carefully planned out the construction schedule and succeeded in renewing the total system in about one year. Such improvement work to a hotel already in business has been considered very difficult.