LONDON July 10, 2003 - Cisco Systems and Prime Business Solutions today announced the completion of a project with the Royal Borough of Kingston to fully replace their PBX (private automatic branch exchange) telephone system with Cisco IP Telephony technology. The Royal Borough of Kingston was the first local authority in the UK, and one of the first in Europe to adopt IP Telephony technology. They are now the first local authority in the UK to be 100% IP Telephony enabled.
The contract to complete a converged IP network was awarded to Prime Business Solutions by The Royal Borough of Kingston Council. Today marks the final milestone in the Council's IP migration as the last PBX is finally switched off.
The contract involved migrating the council's existing 1500 extension PBX system to Cisco IP telephony over an 18 month period. The network has been replaced with Cisco Catalyst switches to help ensure Quality of Service and network resilience, and 1500 Cisco IP phones have been installed. Prime has also completed the implementation of ARC Solution's Contact Centre Software providing public access to all council services by phone.
Consisting of 79 Arc Agents, this virtual contact centre provides call centre functionality to a distributed group of agents across the council campus from a centralised application. This assists in the aim to have a single point of access to meet local requirements, and by 2005, to make all the services available electronically.
The Royal Borough of Kingston is committed to creating the widest possible access routes to services and information for the local community as part of their Public Access project. Key to Kingston's strategy is new and improved telephony.
Robin Noble, ICT Manager for the Royal Borough of Kingston commented: "The previous data network was installed four years ago but has since been withdrawn from the market. This gave us support issues and also it didn't offer the improvements we needed. A Council issue was expanding our PBX network as the resources within the PBX could not be effectively scaled to support additional users, so rather than replacing 3000 lines we looked at the options and considered IP Telephony to offer the best solution. "
He adds: "Looking forward, we also wanted to promote the greater use of hot-desking and remote working to our staff. We have a number of peripatetic staff who work between sites so offering them an office solution with telecommunications and data services at home was paramount in the decision. Our IP network is now definitely easier to manage with greater reliability and we have great features in terms of history of calls, voicemail on e-mail, all coupled with added flexibility and operational agility."
The IP network will help contribute towards reducing costs, increasing operational efficiency and providing a foundation for service transformation and more flexible working practices. There are no Adds, Moves and Changes costs associated with moving people on the IP network within the council, and new productivity tools can be quickly and cost effectively be developed and deployed. With IP phones on everyone's desk as well as some home workers, the Royal Borough of Kingston can look to improving services for the benefit of Kingston's residents.
The IP Communications system, deployed by Prime, comprises a converged Local Area Network (LAN) using Cisco Catalyst 6500 and 3500 series switches and a Wide Area Network (WAN) using Cisco routers. The IP Telephony system includes Cisco Call Manager 7835, Cisco Unity voicemail and a mixture of 7940 and 7960 IP Phones.
About Prime
Prime Business Solutions - Prime represent the new breed of Systems Integrator (SI) and within seven years has become Europe's fastest growing SI, delivering convergence based technologies through voice, video and data networking solutions.
Prime specialises in convergence solutions that not only encompass voice, video and data, but also the information and applications enterprises rely on to create and sustain competitive advantage. Prime helps reduce the cost of owning and operating complex network infrastructures by providing high level consultancy advice, design, installation and support services to clients such as Channel 4, Vodafone, Cadburys, HMV and the British Film Institute.
The company recently used its expertise in wireless and convergence solutions to relocate to a grade one listed mansion, Benham Valence, one of England's grandest stately homes.
A Cisco Gold partner, Prime was awarded the status of Cisco Reseller of the Year 2000 -2001 and more recently among other awards, Cisco UK Voice Reseller of the year 2003.For more information on Prime and convergence solutions visit: www.prime-uk.com
For more information on ARC visit : http://www.arcsolutions.com
