Distribution software specialist, EDP, has implemented a new business VoIP (voice over internet protocol) system to improve communications between its offices across the UK.
EDP’s head of IT, Chris Spicer, said that the new system was needed because the quality of communications made via the organisation’s previous business phone systems was ‘awful’.
Spicer also said that the company’s old business phone systems, which included eight-channel ISDN 30 channels at each of its business locations, were creating challenges through being ‘quite complex to manage’.
In choosing the right business VoIP system, however, EDP faced a further challenge in that the cost of the necessary replacement hardware was starting to look impossibly prohibitive:
‘Replacement would have cost us over £30,000’, explained Spicer.
EDP however eventually found a solution through the installation of session initiation protocol (SIP) trunking; a cost-effective means of adapting existing business phone systems to facilitate the transmission and receipt of internet protocol (IP) telephony data, including business VoIP calls.
Along with sourcing IP telephony via a host business VoIP provider or VoIP reseller, SIP trunking is considered one of the most popular and accessible ways of participating in business VoIP; bypassing the need to invest in expensive new business phone systems hardware.
SIP trunking was introduced at all EDP’s operational centres across the UK, together with a 70-extension facility at its data centre in Milton Keynes.
EDP’s new business VoIP system also benefits from being co-ordinated via the advanced open source telephony software package, Asterisk.
The company estimates that by eliminating the costs of maintaining its old ISDN lines, its newly implemented business VoIP system will also save the organisation in the region of £17,000 a year.
‘We should be able to make a return on our investment within the first year’ explained Spicer.
