CITY OF UMHLATHUZE, SOUTH AFRICA

Customer Profile

For a council with multiple remote sites and hundreds of employees, properly managing its communications is an important, vast and difficult task. The newly formed South African municipality, City of uMhlathuze, which incorporates Richards Bay and Empangeni, has enjoyed one of the highest growth rates in the country. Being the hub of tourism and industry in Zululand, the city is gearing up for huge developments such as a port expansion, a duty-free Industrial Development Zone, a golf course estate and waterfront marina. These exciting new developments, which increased the number of council sites, made it vitally important for the City of uMhlathuze to replace its aging telecommunications system. Thanks to a solution implemented by NEC Philips Unified Solutions, this South African council is now ready and able to meet tomorrow’s rapidly changing business and service demands.

In the past, various communication systems were installed in different service centres. Because the council mainly used direct telephone lines at various locations, internal call costs were escalating. Furthermore, there was no centralised management, meaning telephone lines and remote fax lines were open to misuse.

The council was also restricted in terms of the business applications it could use because the existing Wide Area radio links were limited in bandwidth and not approved by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA). A complicating factor was that Least Cost Call Routing (LCCR) was also not centralised, meaning the council had to manage multiple vendors and ratepayers had to call different numbers to contact different council departments.

Requirements

The City of uMhlathuze’s main requirements included implementing an ICASA-approved radio network throughout 28 remote sites, upgrading the LAN and WAN infrastructure to realise a good voice connection via the IP network (Quality of Service) and installing an IP-enabled communication system with centralised management. A centralised operator function, centralised LCCR and an auto-attendant functionality were also requirements. The new environment had to reduce the running and maintenance costs of all communications significantly and increase its efficiency.

Solution

The end-to-end solution supplied by NEC Philips Unified Solutions included a SOPHO 2000 IPS IP-enabled communication system. It was implemented at the main civic centre in Richards Bay with remote Distributed Modules installed at both of the Empangeni’s civic centres, at the Rescue Services and at the Fire Department. NEC Philips IP Phones were installed at all the other remote site locations.

Furthermore, the main civic centre received a centralised SuperVisor 60 PC-based operator console with a centralised Telephone Management System and LCCR functionality. Through the alliance with long-standing partner 3Com, NEC Philips upgraded the LAN infrastructure with the installation of a Switch 7700 at the main civic centre and the 4400 PWR (Power over Ethernet) Switches at all other locations.

Benefits

Since the completion of the installation in 2005, NEC Philips’ solution has brought many significant advantages for the management and staff of the City of uMhlathuze Council and for the city’s residents. One of the biggest achievements is the 20 per cent reduction of the monthly Telkom (South African telecommunications provider) usage bill. Through the cancellation of lines, a further reduction has been achieved in the cost of equipment rental per month. Nowadays, internal calls between the various council buildings are free, and since the introduction of password dialling for all users, lines are no longer open to misuse.

Furthermore, the LCCR functionality realises maximum saving by sending all GSM traffic via the GSM network, because GSM to GSM traffic is cheaper than fixed to GSM traffic.

Another substantial benefit is that the council has been able to introduce and advertise a single council telephone number for residents to call. An auto-attendant functionality guides callers to the required service unit and voicemail has been introduced to manage messages professionally.

Thanks to the replacement of low-speed hubs at the remote sites, network response times have improved and overall network performance to each remote site has been enhanced by the WAN-upgrade. With more than 50 per cent additional bandwidth per location outside the civic centre, there is even room for expansion. An added bonus is that the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) savings projected over a five-year period will self-fund the system’s upgrade.

Capacity in the City of uMhlathuze’s upgraded communications infrastructure can also be offered to other nearby councils or companies. With the extended bandwidth the council can rent out part of its infrastructure to other parties, which could help recover the cost of the upgrade even sooner.

Why NEC Philips

NEC Philips’ business partner for South Africa, GijimaAst, is the system integrator for the City of uMhlathuze. Thanks to GijimaAst’s recommendation, NEC Philips was chosen to upgrade the communications environment. This recommendation was based on selling points like NEC Philips’ track record of realising large, multi-site networks and its excellent reputation in the government sector.

Key features

• One SOPHO 2000 IPS IP-enabled communication system
• SuperVisor 60
• WAN upgrade to enhance network performance to remote sites
• Extended bandwidth
• One main council telephone number
• Centralised Telephone Management System
• LCCR (Least Cost Call Routing)