Fife brings in new VoIP system
Fife Council has implemented a new VoIP system serving over 12,000 users under budget and bringing business benefits and significant ongoing cost savings. The Council is the third largest local authority in Scotland and eleventh largest in the UK employs 21,500 staff and serving a population of around 360,000 people.
The change of the telephony system involved:
* replacing over 12,000 phones in over 360 sites
* rolling out small office broadband based VPN solutions as an alternative solution to a number of sites
* implementing standard PSTN services for small remote sites
* upgrading communications circuits to achieve extra bandwidth
* improving LAN/WAN resilience and replacing switches in schools across Fife
* cabinet and power upgrade works throughout council buildings
After a competitive tender exercise through the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) the council entered into a fixed price contract for a design and build solution for replacement telephone services over a converged voice and data network with PC World Business PCWB (now Equanet). Work was carried out by their sub-contractors, Affiniti, with CISCO equipment and an in-house project team.
Project Manager, Lee Parry said: “Not only was the new service, including the replacement of over 12,000 handsets, delivered within the ambitious timescale of 18 months - we also came in with an under spend. Further savings made during the delivery of the project allowed us to make health and safety improvements to physical infrastructure, upgrade cabling systems and improve the performance of the IT networks in many schools throughout Fife.
“The converged network will give us more cost effective communications over the system’s lifetime. But this is about more than just saving money – it’s about delivering best value in every sense. Our telephony systems now have the flexibility to help Fife achieve its goal of being the top performing council by enabling business transformation processes.”
Fire shows up benefits
in July following a one room fire in a council building in Glenrothes, caused by a faulty air conditioning unit, affected the IT systems. Some 60 staff from Catering & Cleaning and Procurement & Supplies were faced with no telephone or computer access and had to be immediately relocated.
The ability for employees to log in and out of their VoIP phones came into its own and due to the versatility of the phone system, it was a straightforward procedure to transfer all operations to completely separate buildings. Employees used their individual extension numbers to log into other council telephones, transferring all their calls and resuming business as usual with colleagues and customers with no need for any external supplier or IT Service involvement.
Linda Robertson Senior manager in the Council’s IT team said this is where the new telephone system proved its worth and greatly helped the relocation process. “ It is proof the phones and our contingency plans have worked. I must stress no critical services for the public were affected by this incident.”
Webs:http://www.fife.gov.uk/
http://www.equanet.com/
http://www.affiniti.com/
Source: http://www.bapcojournal.com