Integ Communications Provides On-Demand IP Telephony Solution To the Salvation Army

On-Demand IP Telephony Solution helps the Salvation Army Spread its Forces

Sydney, 12 Feb 2008

Integ Communications, a leading Australian integrator of communications technologies and a UXC company, today announced it has won the contract to deploy its ‘Telephony as a Service’ solution (iTaaS) for The Salvation Army Australia Eastern Territory (TSAAET).

Launched in September this year, iTaaS is an on-demand, IP telephony solution. It uses a hosted delivery model to give organisations access to the most up-to-date IP Telephony offerings at a fixed monthly rate and is customisable to suit an organisation’s specific business requirements.

The six-year contract was awarded to Integ via a competitive tender process under Group Communications Tender (GCT). GCT brings together a consortium of partners who supply telecommunications goods and services at competitive rates, to organisations across Australia.

Integ and TSAAET will roll out iTaaS across its 50 major sites and 800 terminal sites throughout New South Wales, Queensland and the ACT, replacing the organisation’s legacy PABX systems.

Under the iTaaS model, the hardware and software components of the TSAEET telephony solution remain the property of Integ and are housed in a secure data centre. The IP handsets, remote media gateways and passive communications servers will be located at TSAAET's territorial headquarters in Sydney and divisional headquarters in Brisbane as well as across its 50 major sites (average of 18 users per site) throughout NSW, QLD and the ACT.

“The telecommunications network that links our divisional headquarters to offices in our regional and metropolitan centres is critical to our operations, enabling us to provide the superior levels of care and assistance Australians in need, deserve,” said Wayne Bajema, IT Manager, TSAAET.

“When it came to upgrading our existing telephony infrastructure, we knew an IP-based solution would provide the collaboration capabilities, stability and flexibility we were looking for. The challenge lay in finding the internal skills required to manage this technology as well as in the upfront cost required for capital purchase and implementation.

“Integ’s iTaaS solution offers us the best of both worlds. We have access to the most up-to-date telephony solutions immediately without making a significant upfront investment. We also have a team of experts from Integ that manage those components of the solution that we can’t handle on an ongoing basis.

“iTaaS also gives us the flexibility to incorporate other IP-based applications such as unified communications quickly, easily and cost effectively as the organisation expands” Bajema explains.

Services and applications delivered to TSAAET include:
· LAN switches
· Call servers
· IP Media Gateway; and
· Unified Communications

“Integ’s new hosted approach offers organisations that have IT resource and budget limitations, the opportunity to experience the significant cost and productivity benefits that IP telephony delivers,” said Ian Poole, CEO, Integ Group.

“Integ’s new delivery model is about offering increased choice and flexibility for organisations,” Poole said.

Monthly fees will be paid by TSAAET based on the number of users accessing the hosted solution. The per-user fee structure incorporates both the hosted and premise-based hardware and software elements, as well as management and administration of the system for the period of the contract.

“Integ’s iTaaS solution not only meets our needs in terms of providing the IP Telephony infrastructure we need when we need it, but the hosted model also ensures we know how much it’s going to cost us each month, helping us track and manage our costs,” Bajema said.
tag: voip news, Integ Communications, On-Demand IP Telephony, Salvation Army, Telephony as a Service, iTaaS,