Our Next Generation in Action

Case Study: Glasgow City Council

To deliver voice, data and video services at lower cost and achieve e-government targets, Glasgow City Council (GCC) needed to upgrade its IT communications infrastructure. The Council had to ensure that all stakeholders and citizens within its local authority area would be able to access council information and services by a variety of electronic means; whether by telephone, email, web, kiosk or interactive TV.

THUS' solution was to provide a single, scalable, flexible and application-transparent network, which can now support current and future services based on IP and Ethernet over THUS' MPLS IP VPN platform. THUS' implementation of MPLS brings security to the network while allowing any-to-any connectivity with essential Quality of Service (QoS) features, such as priority for voice traffic. This has enabled more effective use of network resources, maximising return on investment.

The Council did not underestimate the challenge of transitioning from a legacy network to an IP-converged network. THUS' upgrade programme originally comprised three phases:

• 1. WAN upgrade to cover 245 large offices; providing a cost-effective alternative to Leased Lines and allowing a bandwidth upgrade to 100Mbps and beyond, as required.
• 2. A LAN refresh; equipping all main locations with Power over Ethernet and QoS to support IP telephony (IPT).
• 3. Deployment of IP telephony; using feature-rich Cisco Call Manager software, to 15,000 IP telephones.

Although GCC originally planned to implement IP voice services in the third phase of deployment it brought forward part of its telephony strategy, with regard to contact centres, as it realised that by making the switch sooner to IPT, it could make significant savings: "If we had remained as we were, we would still be using inflexible voice switches that are expensive to maintain. We've already upgraded our contact centre and will work outwards from there. The new network means the underlying capability is already there to deploy improved telephony to all sites," Elizabeth MacDonald, the Council's ICT Manager, explains. "Now we've completed the core, we are surprised and delighted that we can roll it out easily and quickly, with further savings the more sites we migrate," she adds.

GCC also wanted to retain ownership of its assets rather than transferring them to a service provider and that included its 20-strong in-house IT team. THUS proposed a Joint Services Delivery team that melded its own dedicated engineers and the Council's team into a single operational resource. While the Council retained its headcount, THUS assumed overall responsibility for delivery within the contract.

The vision of a single converged network platform is already bearing fruit. MacDonald comments: "All our voice and data staff have become more multi-skilled and marketable as a result of convergence. We now have an IT and communications strategy and a network for connecting and effectively enabling the '21st Century city' targeted in the e-government initiative."

Benefits summary

Compliance with e-government initiative

Substantial ongoing cost savings

City-wide access to new and improved applications

Platform for migration to ubiquitious IP telephony (IPT)