While the $1.5 billion Venetian Resort is a high-roller in network infrastructure, VoIP is less sexy than the bandwidth going to slot machines.

The Venetian, with its 7,000 guest rooms, 120,000 square foot casino floor, and waterways for gondolas uses 700 switches supporting 10G Ethernet with a network split into 98 virtual LANs supporting everything from 4,000 cameras to wireless hotspots.

Only 2,000 of the resorts 20,000 phones are VoIP, powered by PoE along with the wireless access points. It's hard to justify VoIP phones in the rooms, since a legacy TDM phone costs $20 or less, while an IP phone would cost $125; take the difference, multipley by 7,000 rooms, and there's real money.

A nearly identical network has been deployed at the Venetian Macao and officials expect to save $5 million over five years due to the reliability of the HP switches and other equipment involved.

For more:
- Learn more about the Venetian high-speed network [1] from Network World

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