Wiltshire Council has said that the new single IP telephony and VoIP solution it has implemented for all 5,000 of its staff has led to significant gains both in terms of communications management and economies.
Among the benefits cited by the council regarding its VoIP (voice over internet protocol) and IP (internet protocol) telephony system, is a major contribution to total savings of £2.5 million – achieved as a result of dealing with a single telecommunications supplier, and also from lower support costs.
Another strong advantage has been the ability of employees to connect to the system either at home or at any location where there is an internet link; thus reducing the need for travel.
According to the council’s head of ICT design and delivery, Glen Holmes, the new system has fully succeeded in fulfilling the shared aim to ‘bring private-sector know-how to the public sector’.
As with many business phone systems, the new IP (internet protocol) system is managed on behalf of the council by a specialist remote host VoIP provider; using the services of a VoIP supplier or VoIP reseller has the added advantage of minimising capital expenditure.
However, whereas many businesses usually have the option of keeping their trustworthy existing exchange and adapting it to receive IP signals via specialist gateway technology – such as session initiation protocol (SIP) trunking – Wiltshire council originally decided to commission its new IP telephony system precisely because of inefficiencies and confusion over differing internal communications platforms within the organisation. This confusion had followed the merger of four district councils into the present unitary authority for Wiltshire.
Holmes has additionally pointed to the advantage for the council in using IP telephony of making it much easier henceforward of being able to attain ‘access to new products and new offerings in the market’.
