The following is the 1st part of a multi part series detailing a company’s original voice and data setup and their eventual move to Multi Protocol Label Switching and SIP.
XYZ company is retail chain based out of Chicago. Currently the company has a total of 500 locations that were opened between 1999 and 2004. Their locations are spread across the continental United States, with anywhere from 2 to 20 sites per state.
There are 475 stores, 18 distribution centers, 4 regional offices, 2 call centers and I headquarters. 465 of the stores have one PRI and three analog lines (1 fax line and 2 others for burglar and fire alarms). 10 are smaller stores, in more rural areas. They have 9 business phone lines each. The distribution centers have a total of ten phone lines per location. The regional offices are setup like the larger stores with a PRI and 3 POTS lines. The headquarters and 2 call centers have 4 PRIs and 12 business phone lines each.
That is a total of 1713 business phone lines (POTS lines) and 481 PRIs.
There is a PBX phone system at each of the locations with PRI. A small phone system was installed at the smaller stores and the distribution centers. The equipment costs were just under 8 million dollars. All the systems work independently. All were programmed separately and managing something as basic as the biannual time change is a significant undertaking.
The internet is less complicated. The 465 larger stores, 18 distribution centers and the 4 regional offices have bonded T1s. The ten smaller stores have single T1s and the 2 call centers and the headquarters have a 10 Mbps Ethernet connection. All of the locations have a single DSL or cable internet connections for redundancy.
The phone lines average $40 a month, the PRIs $500 a month, DSL and Cable $50 a month, the single internet T1s are $450 a month and the bonded T1s are $650 per month. The 10 Mbps internet connections are $1,500 per month. Not counting long distance, taxes and surcharges, the company’s total phone bill is $659,570 monthly.
All the locations have regular phone communication with the company headquarters and regional offices. The company averages $150,000 a month in long distance billing, a quarter of which is derived from calls between offices.
XYZ was purchased by All American Conglomerate. Conglomerate’s CIO has assigned the task of reengineering XYZ’s telecom and internet networks to an IT Director. The IT Director wasn’t around during XYZ’s expansion and XYZ’s telecom and IT staff didn’t keep the best records. Now the company is struggling and needs to cut back. Part of the Director’s responsibilities is to reduce XYZ’s telecom and internet spend by 35%.
Where should he start?
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