More than a phone system.It’s a better way to communicate—and save.

Asterisk®

Open Source Communications

CheektowagaObjectives:

Replace an end-of-life Nortel® analog

telephone system (that is patched with

equipment from various vendors) with

a web-centric VoIP infrastructure to

reduce communications costs for this

New York municipality. The project

includes designing and implementing

a VoIP infrastructure for 500

employees in 15 separate locations,

including the mission-critical police

department; the town hall campus,

which contains six buildings; and the

core location on Alexander Street.

Cheektowaga has a lot

more functionality than

they did before, with

unified communications

that allow voice mail to

email communications;

call queues; group rings;

and Find Me/Follow Me

capability.

Solution:Asterisk phone system, Polycom® phones, and Dell® servers.Quoted at thousands of dollars less than traditional PBX systems, Asterisk uses broadband (Internet) connections to tie a business network to the traditional global telephony network. Since it uses broad-band instead of phone lines, employees can work remotely, as long as they are connected to the Internet. They use a centralized administrative console ateach of the three main locations with auto-call routing and direct inward dial (DID). They also installed 300 Polycom desk set phones, and redundant Dell servers at each of the four maincampuses. DID enables callers to dialdirectly into an extension without usingan auto-attendant and they utilize SIP trunks that replace legacy PRIs andanalog lines that were driving upcommunication costs.

Challenges:1. With Nortel equipment at the end of its

15-year lifecycle, Cheektowaga was having difficulty managing the system themselves. There were also problems hiring external vendors for support.

2. The system needed a complete overhaul with highly-customized infrastructure that would accomplish

both an upgrade to VoIP, and cut communications costs.

3. The system was non-expandable.

4. Cheektowaga was experiencing limited voicemail capability

5. Cheektowaga required multiple levels of redundancy for what they termed “Continuous Government” — that in the event of a power failure, server failure, or telecom outages at any one location, the phone system would continue to function.

About the Company: Cheektowaga, New YorkThis New York Township is a suburb of Buffalo with a population of nearly 96,000 residents.

Phone system being replaced: Mixed-bag analog telephone system

“Cheektowaga is very happy with the system because it is engineered for flexibility,reliability, functionality, and expansion that will keep up with the growth of the town.”

Eric HeuserPresident & CTOSource Technical, Digium Preferred Partner

Results:Since Asterisk is an open sourcesoftware solution, Asterisk was able to save the City the $60,000 they hadallocated for network upgrades by olling $60,000 in equipment into what amounted to a $100,000 communications budget with no out-of-pocket product costs. This alternative proved significant in terms of cost savings to implement the overall task.

Nimble GroupObjectives:

Having expanded into two call

centers in Cape Town, Nimble Group

requires a scalable telephony system

to support the rapid growth of their

call center, while also building an IT

infrastructure to support an existing

staff of 350 - 400 representatives,

with plans for 750 - 1,000 callers

by the end of 2011.

Challenges:Two years ago, Clarotech installed asingle, non-redundant server on which open source Asterisk software could connect up to 60 calls, simultaneously. With the aggressive expansion of the call center, Nimble Group needed to add to the existing Asterisk solution and install a scalable and fully redundant solution that met the unique needs of a growing call center. This was important because if the system went down long enough to be realized by the call center employees, it caused a significant disruption which could negatively impact sales.

Solution:Combined Asterisk with an Intel® Modular Server. The Intel Modular Server has six separate modules and a built-in Storage AreaNetwork (SAN) as the platform. Onemodule runs the database for Asterisk, one handles incoming calls, and theremaining four are split into two dual-node clusters that manage the thousands of outgoing calls made every day.Configured in pairs, the modules (orservers) were scattered randomly across four quadrants of the call center.

Nimble Group felt

price was important

but not exclusive.

Functionality and

reliability was at the

core of the decision.

Functionality and

reliability are Asterisk’s

biggest advantages and

it gave Nimble Group

the confidence

everything would work,

as designed.

“Three separate companies recommended … implementing Asterisk. Why should Iconsider anything else … just get on with it!”

Tony RussellIT ManagerNimble Group

About the Company: Nimble GroupNimble Group is a leading creditmanagement company located inCape Town, South Africa, providinganextensive range of services thatinclude outsourced receivablesmanagement, collection services, and credit-risk consulting.

Phone system being replaced: A SUSE® Linux Enterprise Serverrunning Asterisk open source software, designed to support a 20-person call center. The expansion now supports 1,000 users.

Results:Each module is capable of handling 200 calls at a time. By scattering them throughout the call center, only one in four representatives would know if a server went down, thereby causing littleif any disruption of workflow in the event of failure. With each server acting as backup, no caller should be down more than two minutes at a time.

MichiganCaterpillarObjectives:

Implement Asterisk open source

software and redesign the entire IT/

telecommunications infrastructure

throughout corporate headquarters

as part of an effort to overhaul the

existing Avaya 8500 Definity G3

telephone system. Use a web-centric

VoIP system that could include their

six additional locations throughout

Michigan and implement SIP trunking

technology to greatly reduce costs.

Challenges:1. Needed to design (from scratch) the

IT infrastructure to support an entirely new telephony system consisting of corporate headquarters, two call cen-ters, and six other remote locations.

2. Six locations had Centrex lines and additional analog lines connecting

them to the other stores and the PSTN (analog lines) so they had 4-digit

dialing within the state of Michigan.

3. Many of the locations utilized one or more PRIs operating within the ISDN in order to implement multiple DSO. This process enabled them to work faster, at a more reliable rate, and at a lower cost; however, it still could not com-pete in cost savings with SIP trunks.

4. The existing infrastructure did not support more than 15 VoIP phones,

and there were problems transferring calls into and out of the call center.

5. Call quality was not up to standard

6. An aging AT&T network backbone had been overhauled in order to accommodate upgrades in the old Avaya system.

Solution:Upon implementing Asterisk, the cost savings were immediate. The open source Asterisk solution was flexible enough that Michigan Cat could continueusing Cisco hardware, switches, and routers — because it was compatiblewith the existing hardware infrastructure. Even with the added cost of the Cisco equipment, the end-product savingswere undeniable.

Michigan Caterpillar

implemented Asterisk

across seven locations

and successfully

reduced call center

costs by more than

40 percent.

About the Company: Michigan CaterpillarMichigan Caterpillar, whose corporate headquarters is located in Novi, Michigan,half-hour northwest of Detroit, wasfounded as Michigan Tractor andMachinery Co. in 1944. In January 2011, the company sold to MacAllisterMachinery Co. Inc., the primary dealer of Caterpillar equipment in Indiana. The Asterisk project consisted of improving the telephony for nearly 400 employees in two customer call centers, the Power Systems division, the corporate head-quarters in Novi; and locations inGrand Rapids, Mason, Kalkaska, Shelby Township, Saginaw, and Brownstown Township, Michigan. Michigan Catgrosses $400 million in revenues annually.

Phone system being replaced: 15-year-old Avaya 8500 Definity G3

Other solutions considered:Cisco, ShoreTel, Siemens,upgraded Avaya

“Asterisk has provided Michigan Cat with a seamless, flexible system that is easier touse than we ever expected.”

John LaffeyOpen Source VoIP ProgrammerMichigan Caterpillar

Results:By implementing Asterisk with Cisco hardware it costs only $200,000compared to the cost of using Cisco’s complete VoIP telephony system(including hardware) which would have run Michigan Cat about $550,000.

Digium®. We’re changing the way businesses communicate.Want more informationon Switchvox? Take a virtual tour ofthis powerful UnifiedCommunications platform:www.digium.com/switchvox

Contact us — we’re here to help.Talk with a Switchvox specialist: 1 877 344 48611 256 428 6271sales@digium.com

Founded in 1999, Digium is the creator and primary developer of Asterisk, the industry’s first open source telephony platform. More than one million customers in 125 countries have deployed Asterisk-based systems. Digium is committed to ending the days of expensive, proprietary telecom. The Switchvox family of Unified Communications solutions is built on Asterisk and is designed to provide enterprise class features at affordable prices for small and medium businesses.

The award-winning line of Switchvox IP PBX phone systems provides more than a phone system — it delivers a Unified Communications platform that integrates multiple features that increase productivity and lower monthly communication costs. It’s the affordable solution with a proven return on investment for businesseswith 10 to 400 users.

Learn more at www.asterisk.org

Copyright © 2011 Digium, Inc. All rights reserved. Digium and Asterisk are trademarks of Digium, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective ownrs.