Hi all,
I'm in the process of building a villa in Bali and I need some advice
about the telephone setup. I'm not a telecoms specialist and don't
know much about it, so forgive me if I say, or ask, something stupid.
This villa is primarily intended as a business, i.e. people can rent
it. It consists of 2 floors (which can be rented separately) and a
separate staff house about 80 metres away. Depending on business, I
may add 2 more villas in the future. These will be between the 1st
villa and the staff house.
Apparently, in Bali it's cheap to install multiple lines in one go,
but more costly and inconvenient to add extra lines later. I have
therefore requested 3 lines straight away. Maybe I should request
more? It's not too late yet.
If and when I have 3 villas, I imagine it will be worthwhile
installing a PABX system -- but I'm not sure I can justify the
expense at this stage.
So, this is what I'm thinking. Ignoring the staff house for now, I can
route 1 line upstairs and 1 downstairs. I can add a switch that lets
both floors use the same line (with the other one available for
internet access) when the whole villa is occupied by 1 family.
When the 2 floors are rented separately, the switch could be thrown so
that each floor gets their own line (which they'd use for calls AND
internet access, albeit not at the same time). This would prevent both
phones ringing when calls come in and guests finding their phone in
use when they try to use it.
I've spoken to the engineer on this project & he's OK with this idea
and ready to implement it. So far, so good (unless you say otherwise
...). Now for the tricky bit.
To give more flexibility, I'm thinking of installing (digital)
cordless phones. Guests could take them to the kitchen, study, pool
area, etc. This also means I don't need so many phone
points. Ideally, I'd like to make use of the cordless phone intercom
facility (where a handset can call a base unit or another handset) so
that, for example, a guest could contact the staff or another family
member without moving. I know I could install a separate intercom
system, but it just seems neater to keep the hardware to a
minimum. But I'm not sure it can be achieved without going down the
PABX route. I'm (vaguely) aware that cordless handsets must be set up
so that, for example, they don't interfere with a neighbour's set. I'm
wondering if there may be a way to exploit this, perhaps by
deliberately setting all 3 phones to the same frequency (or whatever)
so that intercom calls can be made between them. When new guests
arrive, this may need to be changed depending on whether they're
renting the whole villa or sharing it.
Trouble is, I can see many pitfalls. For instance, if all 3 phones
share the same frequency (or ID group number or whatever) won't they
interfere with each other during normal calls? Also, when the upstairs
and downstairs phones are set differently, they can't both match the
staff phone. I guess I could have 2 staff phones, but it seems too
complicated.
Any ideas?
Android (ajblane@hotmail.com)