BRADFORD, England, May 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Yorkshire Water has won many awards for customer service and holds the
British government's Charter Mark for Service Excellence. In 2006 they were
voted utility company of the year for an unprecedented third consecutive
year, finishing ahead of all other water, gas, electricity, and telecoms
companies.
Pursuing further efficiencies, Yorkshire Water looked for a way to retain
their proven voice switches and reduce leased line costs. The first steps in
2003 involved the elimination of a number of costly 2 Mbps lines by carrying
voice traffic over their own packet-switched core network.
Two PABXs were connected to RAD Data Communications' IPmux-1 TDM-over-IP
(TDMoIP(R)) pseudowire gateways, which convert synchronous TDM voice and
signalling traffic into packets for transmission over IP or any other packet
switched infrastructure. To facilitate this transmission, Yorkshire Water
commissioned RAD distribution partner Open Networks Engineering, based in
Bishops Stortford, to provide the expertise on how to carry voice traffic
over an IP network. "This working relationship with Open Networks has
supported our systems convergence transformation," said Mr Steve Groves,
Senior Network Analyst at YW. "The business case to eliminate our expensive
leased lines, which we used to carry voice, and migrate traffic to our
existing IP data network was compelling," added Matthew Rowe, Senior Network
Analyst at YW.
Migrating to an MPLS Network
Later in 2006, when YW migrated to an MPLS network, there was a need to
carry voice from their remote WANs, and the original single-port IPmux units
at the central office were redeployed at these remote sites. Once again, Open
Networks were able to facilitate YW in utilising QoS to carry voice traffic
over the WAN. To accommodate all of the new outstations, an eight-port
IPmux-8 central site aggregation solution was installed to transport traffic
from multiple E1 trunks over the packet-based network. Open Networks helped
again by introducing an echo canceller to further enhance the voice quality
for all inbound and outbound calls throughout the system.
"Open Networks have supported us all the way with this project and now
supply our group with engineering support both during and after regular
business hours," noted Mathew Rowe. "They have aided YW in developing
redundant back-up paths and an improved management visibility of sequence
errors and jitter on the network," he continued. "This is a great improvement
over the old TDM multiplexers and assists with all troubleshooting
situations."
"By employing RAD's TDMoIP gateways, we have fulfilled the brief to
improve Yorkshire Water's cost and performance efficiency whilst extending
the life of their existing assets," concluded Mr JP Steward, General Manager
of Open Networks Engineering Ltd. "It also means that YW have a strong
network and are ready to move to new VoIP soft switch PBXs when their
investment cycle dictates and the technology matures."
About Open Networks Engineering Ltd.
After more than a decade of excellent service and growth, Open Networks
are nearing their aim of becoming the single point of contact for all major
networking requirements. Their experience and knowledge allows them to offer
products and services to carriers, corporates, government and systems
integrators. Indeed, for national and international government departments
and organisations they have set up a specialist division dedicated to the
unique and potentially complex applications that are prevalent in this market
segment.
As a solutions provider, they can design genuine improvements to
customers' networks using a vast spectrum of products and services and
superior technical knowledge. Open Networks' solutions allow customers to get
the most from their network budgets with savings in bandwidth where possible,
especially with satellite solutions.
Plus with their installation, maintenance and network management
services, all coordinated from their office near Stansted Airport, they can
provide that all-important peace of mind.
Open Networks site: http://www.one.co.uk
About RAD
Established in 1981, privately owned RAD Data Communications has achieved
international recognition as a major manufacturer of high quality access
equipment for data communications and telecommunications applications. These
solutions serve the data and voice access requirements of service providers,
incumbent and new carriers, and enterprise networks, by reducing
infrastructure investment costs while boosting competitiveness and
profitability. The company's installed base exceeds 10,000,000 units and
includes more than 150 carriers and operators around the world. These
customers are supported by 23 RAD offices and more than 300 channel partners
in 164 countries.
RAD is a member of the RAD Group of companies, a world leader in
networking and internetworking product solutions.
RAD Data Communications site: http://www.rad.com
Contact
Bob Eliaz, RAD Data Communications
Tel: +972-3-6458134
bob@rad.com
RAD Data Communications Ltd.
