On 10 Jan 2005 02:57:57 -0800, Android <ajblane@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 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 and 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?
And you want to do it this way because????
For the sake of an arguement, get yourself a Panasonic TA-1232. It's
a nice entry level switch that starts life as an 8 line by 16 phone
box. Cable is cheap, so put as many extensions on the box as you
wish. You can even set up single digit (I'd use 2 digits) dialing for
restaurant and bar dialing. If you're doing the dial-up internet
access instead of broadband, it will even give you reasonable data
rates through the switch.
This system with phones and minimal installation should be around $2K.
Add another $200-800 for a decent call accounting system for billing
the calls.
Carl Navarro
Carl Navarro (cnavarro@wcnet.org)