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Case Studies

EC1

EC1 New Deal for Communities (NDC) is one of thirty-nine NDC partnerships across England that has received government funding over a ten-year period to kick-start the regeneration of deprived neighbourhoods.

EC1 NDC was awarded £52.9m for the period from 1 April 2001 to 31 March 2011. The NDC covers an area of around 4,800 households in the southern-most part of the London Borough of Islington, near the border with the City of London.

The Challenge

EC1 New Deal inherited their previous phone system when they moved into their old offices in 2001. The system was basically 'phones on desks' with set numbers; it was difficult to transfer calls, number porting was not available and it wasn't scalable.

Due to the nature of EC1 NDC's work they wanted to be able to operate a policy of hot-desking, where employees can in theory change desks every day easily. They have a very fluid, busy office, which is open five days a week and some weekends. There are project-based staff, home-workers, full-time and temporary staff. Much of the work is done onsite and many staff would spend a fair amount of time on their mobiles and would regularly have to be called using separate numbers.

EC1 NDC needed a phone solution that would fit in with their changeable working structure, be both scalable and highly flexible. The system also needed to work within a strict budget and be easily maintained.

The Solution

When moving to new premises a fact-finding mission was undertaken to find the most appropriate providers. As with most businesses EC1 NDC do not have a dedicated telecom specialist and therefore relied on the providers to give them the information in an understandable way.

After talking to a few well known telecom providers, ADS Inbay, a Voicenet Solutions Centre of Excellence, was then contacted and impressed EC1 NDC enough with the hosted VoIP offering to be awarded the account.

VNi Mobile works by using VoIP compatible GSM Nokia E61 and E65 phones via WiFi access points over the Voicenet Solutions hosted VoIP network. Calls will be guaranteed within the workspace as each site has builtin QoS facilities.

Whether they are at home, work or onsite, users only need one phone. If colleagues need to contact them or transfer a call they just dial the extension number. When outside a WiFi network the call gets transferred automatically to their mobile network via VoIP, thus reducing costs further.

They offered EC1 NDC the following:

  • A full demonstration highlighting beneficial features and products that were pertinent to their needs
  • Full support throughout the implementation period and beyond, for office, mobile and home workers
  • A reliable FMC solution – VNi Mobile
  • The ability to log-in to their laptop and nearest phone, which would then be ready to go for that person's extension, thus allowing hot-hot-desking
  • Achievable cost savings for the first quarter and then ongoing for the next 12 months
  • A hosted VoIP solution that is maintained remotely
  • Power over Ethernet solution to cut down electricity usage
  • A competitively priced solution

The Outcome

With the hosted solution, WiFi routers, VoIP over WiFi mobile handsets, Cisco IP phones and softphones on laptops, the Voicenet Solutions phone system provided by ADS Inbay has enabled EC1 NDC to work the way they want to more easily. The old system was inhibitive and had to be worked around. This new solution gives greater freedom and flexibility and means employees can work at any desk in the home or onsite and still be contactable on their single office number.

Customer Comment

"The integrated system means our mobile users can make WiFi calls from both the home and office enabling us to work at maximum capacity at either location."

"Not only do we expect substantial savings but we have an office phone system that gives us greater flexibility, working the way we want."

Danielle Roberts, Office Manager

The FMC Solution

ADS Inbay gave a full demonstration of VNi Mobile to the team. This Fixed Mobile Convergence solution enables users to make and receive business calls on their mobile, in any WiFi area, over their business’s VoIP network.

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