ICM and BT in voice continuity agreement

Customers of ICM Continuity Services will now have access to the very latest voice technology providing peer leading telephony solutions in the event of a disaster, following a new voice and data infrastructure agreement with BT Business and global enterprise communications provider Avaya.

Rollout of the highly resilient IP-based telephony system across 7,500 end points and 14 business continuity centres began in September and will be complete by the end of the year.

As part of the multi-million pound three year agreement, IT and BT Business will replace the current standalone Nortel phone systems by virtualizing the telephony across the 14 ICM Continuity Centres to create a single feature rich IP telephony architecture based on Avaya Aura Communication Manager.

Should an ICM customer suffer a disaster or outage the upgraded IP local area networks (LANs) will reduce the time for ICM customers' voice and data to be reinstated and individually configured from hours to minutes. The Avaya architecture allows multiple customer sites and incidents to be managed and provisioned under the single virtual telephone system, making it quicker and easier for calls to be diverted to either an ICM alternative workplace, or home user, allowing business to continue as normal.

Having beaten three other IT suppliers to preferred supplier status, BT Business will provide data switches for voice calls between sites and Avaya Aura Communication Manager to deliver flexible inbound call routing options. The new systems significantly enhance functionality at all 7,500 end points and will support demands on the company's key voice applications, particularly complex call centre capability and enterprise resource planning. The solution is also expected to save ICM in excess of £1m in telephony system administration and network costs.

The new system comprises Avaya telephony software and servers, & Extreme LAN equipment and management systems, plus call centre management and AIMS system administration software. Nice Voice Recording plus network analysis and optimisation services from BT Business will also be deployed.

http://www.icm-continuity.co.uk

•Date: 5th Feb 2010 • Region: UK •Type: Article •Topic: Telecoms continuity
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