Telewest scoops Slough Council voice comms deal

NEWS Slough Borough Council has stripped out its heterogeneous voice communications infrastructure and replaced it with a single system from Telewest Business in a bid to cut costs and ease the management overhead. The council is replacing its old telephone system with Telewest's Centrex Virtual Private Network (VPN) service, which will provide it with advanced telephony services, hosted and managed by Telewest's digital exchange. Sue Harling, head of IS and IT director for Slough Borough Council, said that some of the savings will come from lower circuit rental and call costs - the organisation will not be billed for internal calls, even if they are made between different council buildings in the borough. The council has nearly 1,600 extensions, and new ones can be put in place during the contract period without any additional capital cost. Harling added: "The new service provides comprehensive management and accounting information analysis and data including the reporting on performance indicators." Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.