Fourteen IP and Ascom Strengthen Partnership with Five-Star Project for Global Hospitality Chain
The project is the latest in a series of high-profile UK hospitality contracts for the partnership, with Ascom and Fourteen IP recently providing Myco 3 handsets to 4 premium hotels in the capital.
Owned and operated by one of the world’s biggest luxury hotel and hospitality brands, the converted Edwardian townhouse in question is divided into a series of high-end apartments, which are serviced by 24/7 staff providing everything from concierge and maid services to maintenance, gardening, and personal shopping.
In addition to guaranteeing a high-quality comms solution for guests, a key specification in the telephony upgrade brief was to enable enhanced communication, and task co-ordination, between individuals and teams on staff – leveraging the existing telecoms infrastructure to do so.
Fourteen IP, a global specialist in hosted voice and data solutions in the hospitality sector, achieved this by IP enabling the property’s existing DECT solution and using Ascom’s enterprise class Myco smartphones - which operate on both DECT and WiFi - to facilitate device consolidation and greater access to hospitality management software applications. Including the customer’s own proprietary application.
Richard Ford from Fourteen IP said: “This project highlighted a challenge we often see hotels wrestling with. DECT typically offers better voice stability but DECT-only handsets don’t support extensive use of the smart communication and management applications that have become so useful for the hospitality industry. Conversely, ‘high street’ smartphones that do provide app usage over Wifi, don’t have the roaming quality or reliability needed for commercial applications at scale.
“As a result, you end up with different staff using a range of different devices which, as well as being cumbersome, can end up with messages being missed and tasks taking more time than they should. In a hospitality setting, where first-class service is part of the brand DNA, this is far from ideal. By using Ascom’s Myco handsets for this project, and many like it, we overcome this issue and deliver the best of both worlds.”
For over 60 years, Ascom enterprise solutions have been empowering mobile workers by bringing the benefits of on-the-go communication and collaboration to workplaces around the world.
Fourteen IP has a global unified communications network and is continually seeking best-of-breed partners and brands to enrich both staff and guest experienced within the hospitality sector. The company has been a channel partner for over 7 years, offering Ascom’s wide range of DECT and VoWifi handsets as part of end-to-end unified comms systems for hotel and hospitality settings.
Ford added: “We know that Ascom solutions easily integrate with virtually any telephony, alarm, IT and process management system. Together with their proven track record in global hospitality, this means that - as their reseller - we have complete confidence in what we’re offering and know that deployment will be straightforward. This latest project is certainly testimony to what can be achieved through strong channel partnerships.”