 Convergence & VoIPNetwork World's Convergence & VoIP Newsletter, 10/31/07Minneapolis deploys 3-1-1 serviceBy Steve Taylor and Larry HettickThe city of Minneapolis, Minn. recently joined a growing number of cities deploying 3-1-1 services - a single phone number to provide its 380,000 citizens with faster access to non-emergency city government services. As part of the city’s efforts to upgrade its communication services, it decided to use a Siemens HiPath infrastructure that was installed by Black Box Network Services. With the move to support 3-1-1, the city also took the opportunity to concurrently consolidate communications across 15 smaller contact centers and 35 locations. In a prepared statement, Connie Perila, Manager of Telecommunications and Network Services for the city said, "3-1-1 is a huge initiative for us, and we needed to implement a more reliable telecommunications platform and robust applications for that to be successful. Not only does it offload 9-1-1 and let us improve our responsiveness to our citizens' needs, but it also will help us address other disaster recovery scenarios by giving us a way to field excess 9-1-1 calls in the event of a citywide catastrophe." We followed up with Perila and during the interview she said that before the 3-1-1 service, citizens had to sort through 250 phone numbers to get to the right person or department. By creating a contact center supported by 30 to 35 active agents, access to city services is much easier. The blended contact center uses skills based routing to support both phone calls and e-mails, and Siemens is working with the city’s CRM supplier to offer CTI-based “screen-pops” to the agents. She also noted that the infrastructure upgrades will position the city to fully converge its voice and data networks, although today the remote locations still rely on one circuit for voice and another circuit for data, pending upgrades to make the data network ready for VoIP.
When asked why the city chose the Siemens solution, Perila said that the city has had a 17-year relationship with Siemens, and that Siemens VoIP-ready digital phones were already installed at 30 remote locations serving the city’s employees using 3,500 phone extensions. She said, “With such a diverse work force, we wanted to make sure [all the city employees] didn’t have to learn new features. We also wanted to protect our existing investment since some of the equipment has been in place for less than five years. And we’ve had a great relationship with Black Box and with Siemens.” Next time: VoIP Security Issues Reported Editor's note: Starting the week of Nov. 12, you will notice a number of enhancements to Network World newsletters that will provide you with more resources and more news links relevant to the newsletter's subject. The Convergence & VoIP Newsletter, written by analysts Steve Taylor and Larry Hettick, will be merged with the VoIP News Alert and will be newly named the Convergence & VoIP Alert. You'll get Steve and Larry's analysis of the convergence and VoIP market, which you will be able to read in full at NetworkWorld.com, plus links to the day's convergence news and other relevant resources. This Alert will be mailed on Mondays and Wednesdays. We hope you will enjoy the enhancements and we thank you for reading Network World newsletters.
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| Contact the author: Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. For more detailed information on most of the topics discussed in this newsletter, connect to Webtorials, the premier site for Web-based educational presentations, white papers, and market research. Taylor can be reached at taylor@webtorials.com Larry Hettick is a Principal Analyst at Current Analysis, the leading provider of competitive response solutions. A 25 ARCHIVEArchive of the Convergence & VoIP Newsletter. BONUS FEATURE90% of IT Managers are leaving their company at risk for a DNS ATTACK. Get the tools and resources you need to keep your DNS healthy and secure. Run a DNSreport on your domain today - 56 critical tests run in 8 seconds. Visit www.dnsreport.com to learn more. (apply coupon NWW2007NLA for a 25% membership discount) PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICESTo subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: networking.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007 |
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