AT&T scores $150M deal with Marriott for VOIP, broadband and LTE backup

Marriott inked a three-year, $150 million deal with AT&T (NYSE: T)  in which the operator will provide faster broadband services for Marriott guests, VOIP calling, cloud services and LTE backup.

The deal calls for a network architecture that will help the hospitality chain move key applications to the cloud over the next three to five years. In addition, AT&T's LTE network will act as a backup for critical business applications.

"Moving our business applications to the cloud is more efficient. It will allow us to better meet the demands of our global business. It will also make it easier for our associates to work together and improve our overall guest experience. Using AT&T as our primary wireless back-up carrier will help us support the needs of our guests by making our networks and access to applications more reliable," said Bob Galovic, vice president, IT networks at Marriott.

AT&T will also migrate Marriott's voice services to VOIP so that the firm's voice and data are running over a single network, which will reduce costs and be easier to manage.  It will also allow for new features such as being able to route guest calls to the proper Marriott associate. This will happen by late 2015.

In addition, AT&T will have a dedicated maintenance center that will only respond to calls from Marriott.  

Marriott has been a long-time customer of AT&T and the carrier has deployed distributed antenna systems in various Marriott properties over the years.  For example in 2014 AT&T built a DAS system at the Marriott City Center in Dallas.  In addition, in 2011 the operator deployed a DAS system in the Indianapolis JW Marriott.

Interestingly, Marriott also inked a deal with Verizon Enterprise Solutions (NYSE: VZ) last December.  At the time, Verizon said it had won a multi-year agreement with Marriot International to deploy its cloud-hosted voice solution that was specifically designed for the hospitality industry.

Verizon also said that all of the Marriott properties would get access to a fully managed cloud-hosted voice solution that would reduce the need for onsite hardware and IT support; a way to replace legacy PBX systems; integration with hotel property management systems (PMS software); UC functionality; and Verizon 4G LTE wireless failover for business continuity if the wired network goes down.

For more:
- see this press release

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