SIP COST
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Neon Case Study
Neon (previously Marketform, now part of RiverStone Holdings since 1st January 2021) is a specialist Lloyd’s Managing Agency, providing tailor-made insurance solutions to multiple industries around the world. Founded in 1989, the company’s success has been due to the strong technical skills of its underwriters and passion for client service. Having successfully worked with Neon, another opportunity arose to assist the company in a major office relocation project.
Challenges
To accommodate its growing business, Neon decided to relocate. They found a modern, open plan, high-tech office in the heart of the city, to house all 170 UK-based staff. From both a staff and customer perspective it was very important to limit the risk of the entire telephony move, as well as ensuring a smooth transition from old to new. In doing so, limiting downtime and retaining the existing service numbers and contact details.
Highlights
SynergyPlus was able to add value by proposing an established roadmap for service migration. Their proposal allowed Neon to move to Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking as part of an overall business continuity and disaster recovery strategy. During the planning phase, SynergyPlus’ account director, Leon Penny, was able to bring a wealth of experience to facilitate this; resulting in the client successful migrating to SIP significantly in advance of the physical move. For Neons’ clients this meant that long standing Direct Dialing In (DDI) ranges, that enable callers to directly dial staff, were retained. This solution injected a valued flexibility and disaster recovery process into the business in the event of an outage and more importantly meant the office relocation ultimately came down to a relocation of hardware, with no need for physical installation of lines or onsite engineers.
Solution
SIP is a very flexible protocol that has great depth, far beyond voice calls. SynergyPlus’ technicians were able to provide an SIP trial, to ensure the client could trust the service and minimise any risk to the business of an immediate move. Following a successful trial, a seamless migration to SIP including the DDI range number port was completed. Only pre-informed stakeholders were able to notice the migration had taken place.
Head of IT at Neon, said:
“The SIP migration was thoroughly seamless and the call quality blew their expectation out of the water.” The SIP migration delivered an additional 20 per cent cost saving.
Following successful projects, Neon invited SynergyPlus to provide pricing on data connectivity for the new office. As the address was not finalised, SynergyPlus put forward a flexible solution. Taking into account the tight timescales, an agreement whereby SynergyPlus would place orders which could be cancelled, without penalty, up to and including the point of survey. While leases were being finalised, this was a no-risk option for the client.
SynergyPlus secured an order to provide true resilience, in the form of an R02 circuit, utilising COLT and BT Openreach, to two different exchanges from two different PoPs. This minimises the risk of any downtime and helps deliver on tight timescales, as there are two opportunities of getting a quick install with either provider.
A key benefit of working with SynergyPlus on Ethernet data connectivity and SIP is their ability to provide clients with private IP connections to their highly resilient SIP provider. A private connection ensures that calls do not “bump” over the public internet and are delivered, securely, straight to the SIP provider. The registration of two IP exchanges offers a high level of resilience, because if one exchange fails the other is automatically assigned, at network level, to allow the business to function as normal.
“Having worked on many outsourced projects over the years this was by far the best executed; with responses being prompt and information accurate.”
Head of IT,
Neon
“Having worked on many outsourced projects over the years this was by far the best executed; with responses being prompt and information accurate.”
Head of IT,
Neon
The Outcome
SynergyPlus value the strong relationship it has developed with Neon and were keen to obtain feedback.
“The challenges and complications of moving an entire firm are immense but having the telephone migration completed ahead of time, leaving us with a ‘switch off’ at one location and ‘switch on’ at the new location was a fantastic approach, derisking this whole aspect of the office move. The team at SynergyPlus should hold their heads high as they have delivered exactly what they said they would – on time and on budget.”
Head of IT at Neon.
