New system adds cost advantages
By Leslie Faughnan
With subsidiaries in the USA and Britain as well as Ireland, NTR PLC has been one of our fastest growing public companies in recent years. Its specialisation in renewable energy and related technologies means it is less affected by the recession than other sectors.
The NTR head office in Dublin has more than 50 staff that have been enjoying the benefits of a smart new VoIP system since late last year. Designed and installed by CD soft, the system is based on Shore Tel desk handsets and Director management software. It is fully integrated with NTR’s Microsoft Communications Server 2008 platform.
“Our first decision was to invest in MS Comms Server to improve our internal communications across the board,” said IT manager Clareann O’Boyle.
“We had it in place for about a year before adding the VoIP system. “We knew we were going in that direction, because our phone system had become a bit archaic by modern standards. But we took the time to investigate the options, took advice from our companies in the US and elsewhere and decided late last year to go with ShoreTel systems and CD soft.”
NTR had to add another switch on its network because the chosen IP handsets use Power over Ethernet (PoE).Other than those replacement handsets and the switch there was no hardware investment required. The PBX or call management capability is software, with the Shore Tel Director program offering an easy to use interface for administrators and individual users.
“We are happy that we will gain the cost advantages we anticipated,” said O’Boyle. “But the immediate impact for management and the users has been in flexibility, a wider range of functionality and perceptibly better voice quality.”
Through Microsoft Office Communicator the fact that telephony is now all VoIP means that users can also take advantage of a soft phone on PC when working anywhere away from base. Once logged on they have exactly the same set of smart phone functions as if they were at their office desks.
“That includes setting their own rules or profiles for incoming calls, with automatic voicemail or call transfer,’’ O’Boyle said. “A feature we are all finding very useful is monitoring other people’s extensions. You can see if someone is free or not and book a call to that person when the line becomes free.”
NTR is looking at taking further advantage of VoIP, for example in setting up simple four-digit dialling throughout the group internationally. “We are also looking at SIP trunking for call cost economies and seeing if we need more bandwidth. We already use videoconferencing quite a bit,’’ O’Boyle said.
“Between voice and video we might need more resources, but the business benefits seem clear.”
