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Edinburgh Council signs multimillion BT deal
Lops £250,000 off phone bill

By Julian Goldsmith

Published: Wednesday 27 August 2008

The City of Edinburgh Council has signed a three-year, £3.2m deal with BT for a fixed rate telephone network.

The network will run on the BT Hosted Voice platform providing a virtual private telephone network to all of the council's sites, and will give the council one-rate-for-all calls, whether national, international or mobile, with the exception of 118 directory services.

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It's estimated the network will save the local authority £250,000 per year over five years, if the council takes up the option to extend the contract for a further two years.

The deal is the latest extension of the council's partnership with BT, which the carrier claims has already given the council £33.3m in efficiency savings over the last 15 years.

In a statement, City of Edinburgh Council convenor of finance councillor Gordon Mackenzie said: "This deal will deliver immediate savings and give us the vital management information we need to move towards a future with all calls and data sharing a single high speed network."