Executive Summary

Eight separate Panasonic KX-TDA Telephone Systems installed nationwide and then linked together as one entity via IPVPN (MPLS) with Unified Messaging, Operator Consoles and CTI.

Introduction

In July 2006, CIPFA awarded Palebeck the contract for the supply and maintenance of a new Panasonic KX-TDA600 telephone system at their building in Croydon. In December 2008 Palebeck installed a second system KX-TDA600 at their City of London office and linked it to Croydon via an IPVPN* with MPLS*. During 2010, further Panasonic KX-TDA Systems were installed in the remaining six offices across the UK so that by the end of the year all inter office calls are now free of charge and the whole network enjoys far higher resilience and availability than ever before.  

Phase 1 - Croydon

“Efficient communications is key to the success of organisations such as the IPF and whilst we had been using Panasonic key telephone systems for many years, when the time came to change out our system we looked around at what was on the market. In particular we examined IP and Voice over IP systems from other manufacturers such as Alcatel, Cisco and Siemens to see if there was any benefit in adopting this new technology immediately. We concluded, having established that 95% of our calls are not made on an inter-company basis, that the benefits to be gained by moving to VoIP were just not there. The size of investment we would have to make meant that we would not see a return on investment for years."

"We decided therefore to select the Panasonic KX-TDA600 system which is IP compatible and can be upgraded to IP working very simply at a time to suit ourselves.”

Phase 2 - Robert Street, City of London

Inter-office calls increased during the following two years and when the City of London office had it's new KX-TDA600 installed, the existing Cable and Wireless DASS2 link was converted to a MPLS IPVPN* so all direct or transferred calls back and forth between Croydon and the City would be free of charge.  

Phase 3 - Sites completed early 2010 - Belfast, Birmingham,  Borough High Street, Cardiff, Chester and Edinburgh

During 2010 the remaining 6 offices across the UK were upgraded to Panasonic KX-TDA systems. Each of the offices have been connected via an IPVPN (MPLS) so that by the middle of the year all inter-office and transferred calls were being carried free of charge. Each office is also running it's own own auto attendant and voicemail in order to maximise network resilience.    

Features and Benefits now enjoyed by CIPFA staff

In addition to the implementation of a logical extension numbering plan across the whole network, staff could now easily trasfer calls between offices without incurring additional costs. Croydon and Robert Street have their own own operators / receptionists who answer general inbound calls via a PC based operator console and at busy times or out of hours, an auto attendant answers and directs calls and provides voicemail functionality for all users. Voice messages can even be forwarded as attachments within e mails.  

Phones and Applications

Staff across the entire network use either KXT7633E or KXT7668E phones and  benefit from CTI applications such as inbound screen popping where a CRM record appears during inbound ringing ready to be updated during the call.  In addition these users can dial people directly from their database record hence increasing efficiency.  

In summary

The biggest benefit by far has been the dramatic reduction in call costs between offices. Wheareas before, calls were initiated or transferred across the public network, they are now made across their own secure, resilient MPLS network. The links have to be provisioned for data traffic anyway, so the natural extension was to allow voice calls as well.

Systems Installed as at Autumn 2010

• Croydon – Panasonic KX-TDA600EP – 128 Extensions
• Robert Street, City of London – Panasonic KX-TDA600EP – 184 Extensions
• Belfast – Panasonic KX-TDA200EP – 40 Extensions
• Birmingham – Panasonic KX-TDA15 – 12 Extensions
• Borough High Street, London – KX-TDA200EP – 72 Extensions
• Cardiff – Panasonic KX-TDA15 – 12 Extensions
• Chester – Panasonic KX-TDA200EP – 40 Extensions
• Edinburgh – Panasonic KX-TDA100EP – 24 Extensions