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Teledex's iPhone IP might be in your next hotel room

Teledex iPhone IP

It's no secret that the cellphone has been a disaster for the hotel industry. Hotels had gotten used to raking in fat profits by gouging guests making local and long-distance phone calls from their rooms, but now that most travelers carry a cellphone they've had to get used to the reality that most people never even touch the landline in their room, except maybe to order room service (supposedly shadier hotels have resorted to installing cellphone jammers to try and force guests to use the phones in their room). We doubt this'll do all that much to turn back the hands of time, but Teledex just introduced a new web-enabled VoIP phone and backend content management system designed specifically for the hotel industry that offers "new ways to generate new revenues." The iPhone IP isn't very creatively named, but it does sport an LCD touch screen that can be customized to provide easy access to information about the hotel and local attractions, news, weather, hotel information, etc (it sort of reminds us of Verizon's new One info appliance). Anyway, the idea here apparently is that guests will be drawn to use the phone by the richness of its offerings and that because of that local businesses will pay to have their ads on their phone's screen. Or something like that.

[Via Search Engine Journal]