IT support and phone systems for Blackpool businesses

Distance

About 35 miles from our Burnley office

Typical drive

about 50 minutes

Main route

M65 to M6 to M55

Postcode areas

FY1, FY2, FY3, FY4

Dialling code

01253

County

Lancashire

Hotels are the reason this page exists

Blackpool has a very large number of hotels and guesthouses, from single-property family businesses to substantial operations with hundreds of rooms, alongside leisure attractions, bars, restaurants, conference space and the trading businesses that supply them. Add a significant public-sector employer presence and the business parks around the airport enterprise zone, and it is a more varied economy than the seafront suggests.

But the hospitality density is what makes the switch-off distinctive here. A hotel is one of the few building types that can genuinely have dozens of analogue lines, and every one of them is in scope:

• Room phones. Many older systems run analogue extensions from an on-site PBX, which in turn is fed by analogue or ISDN lines. The extensions may be fine; the lines feeding the system are not.
• Reception and the published number. The number in every directory and on every booking site. It ports, but it has to be planned.
• The lift. Legally required emergency communication that has to work during a power cut. This cannot simply move onto office broadband - see our guide to the devices that rely on a phone line.
• Fire alarm and intruder signalling. Needs the alarm company, a replacement signalling path and re-commissioning. Start from the switch-off checklist.
• Card terminals, door entry, the payphone in the lobby, and the fax line in the office.

For a hotel of any size this is a project with a critical path, not a purchase. The critical path runs through the lift and alarm contractors, because their availability is the constraint for the entire country between now and January 2027.

Guest Wi-Fi and business systems should not share a network

The other recurring Blackpool problem is one connection doing two incompatible jobs. Guests stream in the evening; the property management system, the card terminals, the CCTV and the back office all need to work at the same time.

Done properly, that means:

• Separate networks, so guest devices cannot reach business systems at all. This is a security requirement as much as a performance one.
• Traffic shaping, so guest use cannot starve the systems you trade on.
• Enough upload, which is what CCTV and cloud property management actually consume, and what consumer-grade packages skimp on.
• Access point coverage designed for the building, which in an older hotel with thick walls and long corridors means several properly placed and cabled points, not a router in reception and hope.

Guest Wi-Fi complaints are one of the most common causes of poor reviews in this sector, which makes this a revenue conversation rather than an IT one.

Seasonality should be in the contract

Blackpool's trading year is not flat, and the technology arrangements usually pretend it is.

A hosted phone system lets you add reception seats for the season and drop them again, put out-of-hours routing on with a phone, and handle overflow to a mobile when reception is busy. A traditional system is sized for August and paid for in February.

The same applies to business mobile. If you take on seasonal staff, twenty-four-month handset contracts for all of them is the wrong shape - shorter SIM-only terms, or a pool of company handsets reissued each season, usually costs far less. Our guide to business mobile for retail and hospitality covers the options.

Being honest about the distance

We are fifty minutes away. That is fine for remote support, for phone system deployment and configuration, and for planned installation work - and it is genuinely fine for the switch-off project, which is scheduled work by its nature. It is not fine if you need someone at reception within the hour on an unplanned basis. If that is your requirement, use a Fylde coast firm, and we will say so if you ask us.