WIG is a charity, independent and neutral

The Challenge
 

In 1999, LCC installed a Panasonic Telephone system with PSTN/ISDN lines, upgrading to a Panasonic KX-NCP telephone system with SIP telephone lines and ported their telephone numbers in 2011. For Data and IP Voice, LCC installed a 20Mbps Fibre Leased Circuit, later upgraded to 100Mbps to cope with an increasing workload. WIG staff spend much of their time organising regional events outside London and running leadership programmes across the UK whilst staying in contact with colleagues and participants. To achieve important technology objectives, the workplace had to change to allow staff to work anywhere and at any time, yet always be just a phone call or email away. For nearly 20 years, all staff had dedicated deskphones but a much more dynamic system was required – Hotdesking!

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Our Solution
 

Out of nearly 30 staff, no more than 18 staff would be at their desks at the same time so WIG’s popular and well located offices were redesigned, ready for a well-planned fit-out to include 18 Hotdesks, 2 Phone booths, Library, Interview & Boardrooms with conference facilities and a large, welcoming kitchen and dining area. As it is almost impossible to work whilst workmen are building, temporary offices in Southwark Council’s flagship building in Tooley Street, SE1 were offered to WIG for 6 weeks.

 

After listening carefully to these plans, LCC proposed our hosted solution called Parasol with Hotdesk working, where staff could sign-in to Hotdesk Featurephones and use their Parasol Mobile App and make/receive calls when not at their London desk. The Parasol Mobile App would then work particularly well in UK exhibition halls where WiFi is freely available as WIG staff have discovered the cellphone coverage is poor. In addition, a temporary Internet service would be required for Voice, Data and WiFi.

 

As WIG’s telephone numbers were already hosted by LCC, the transfer to Parasol hosted handsets was simple, allowing WIG staff to walk straight in with a working telephone system and numbers without any problems. As LCC supply a Radio Internet service in central London, served by 3.5MHz cellular masts, one of which is on top of our Southwark Street building, two radio transceivers of 10Mbps each were supplied alongside a borrowed 20Mbps Internet service from Southwark Council.

 

Once the fit-out was complete, a Senior Engineer re-attended 160 Tooley Street to move the Parasol Featurephones back to 80 Petty France, re-commissioned the Fibre Leased Circuit, supplied 3 Cordless Featurephones and installed 2 Polycom IP7000 Conference Units for the Interview and Boardrooms. The staff then moved seamlessly to their newly created spaces, which now have the Wow! factor.