The Louvre-Lens Museum Turns to Mitel to Optimize Visitor Experience

By Michael Guta
TMCnet Contributing Writer

Museums are no longer a passive experience in which visitors stroll through exhibitions without much interaction. Many of the major museums around the world have implemented solutions that allow visitors to fully interact with their surrounding using a wide range of information and communications technologies (ICT). The latest museum to deploy this type of technology to enhance visitor experience is the Louvre-Lens Museum, a satellite of its more famous Louvre in Paris. Using Mitel’s communications technology, the museum now has a fully integrated communication solution delivering engaging experiences for visitors, while improving communication capabilities for employees.

Unlike the glamorous location of Paris, the Louvre-Lens was built in one of France’s poorest areas—Lens, Pas-de-Calais—a former mining town in the north of the country. The ultramodern structure was designed by Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa at a cost of 150 million euros ($166 million). And the five buildings that make up the museum made of glass and steel look like they were uprooted straight out of Tokyo because of the contrast of its current location.

The museum was looking to deploy cutting-edge technology to deliver a visiting experience that integrates existing technologies consumers already have in their possession, such as smartphones and tablets with multimedia guides and state-of-the-art visitor greeting service.

Mitel (News - Alert) will be providing expertise to deliver a range of solutions to optimize the visitor experience and simplify the collaborative process for sharing information between museum employees. According to the company, this will include the implementation of SIP-DECT (News - Alert) and Wi-Fi technology to give employees real-time data as they are moving about throughout the museum.

“We have gained fluidity, efficiency and can now operate in a secure, robust and scalable environment. The success of this deployment makes us consider extending the mobility services through Wi-Fi and Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) coverage to another part of our site,” said Eric Cassou-Ribehart, IT manager at the Louvre-Lens Museum.

The Mitel SIP-DECT delivers smartphone-like features to VoIP networks, giving organizations a comprehensive solution for cordless telephony on IP-based networks by combining Session Initiation Protocol (News - Alert) (SIP) innovation with DECT.

Some of the key features include:

• Excellent voice quality and data transmission with voice and text messaging,
• No range restrictions - size of radio network can grow with IP-infrastructure,
• Simultaneous support of mobile voice and data communication (i.e., DECT and Wi-Fi delivered in parallel) and easy handset and RFP installation - no frequency planning required for DECT,
• High reliability through a redundant structure of SIP-DECT control components ensures customer data and radio links remain available in case of failure,
• Three-way conference regardless of the communication system, and
• Individual phonebooks stored in user profile in addition to access to central phonebook.

Bernard Etchenagucia, Managing Director, Mitel France commented: "Louvre-Lens Museum is an excellent example of how Mitel can deliver a fully integrated communication solution that creates engaging experiences for customers, while enhancing communication capabilities for employees, to ensure a seamless working model behind the scenes that creates the best visitor experience."