The Electrical Experimenter, March, 1917, page 790:
WIRELESS 'PHONE FOR HOTEL PLAN.
Guests at the Hotel Oakland, of Oakland, Cal., may be able to talk by wireless telephone with friends on incoming steamers, if present plans under consideration by the hotel management are carried out.
Following the precedent by many hotels on the Atlantic coast, of installing wireless telegraphic sets for the benefit of guests, the management some time ago took up the feasibility of having a similar service installed in the Hotel Oakland, to be operated in conjunction with the ocean liners.
Recent negotiations by the federal government with certain interests who have been developing the wireless telephone for direct communication over the air route, together with experiments which Uncle Sam has been conducting with radio-telephonic systems, has led to the decision on the part of the manager, Mr. Carl Sword, to consider the practicability of having a wireless telephone establisht in the hotel.
The plan includes a co-operation among hotel managers all along the Pacific Coast for the purpose. A regular service for the transmission of important inter-hotel business, advance reservations by guests over the air, and a thousand other uses could be found for the convenience. The plan was suggested at the national meeting of the Hotel Men's Association held last year, but no active steps were taken.
Under the plan, as outlined at the present time, the various hotel managers of the coast would form a wireless association which would install apparatus.