Glasgow City Council is upgrading its network to provide an IP telephony infrastructure and a multilingual contact centre.
The local authority says the high-bandwidth communications network, which is being rolled out over the next six months, is fundamental to its egovernment strategy - Access Glasgow – which aims to make it easier for the city's 600,000 citizens to communicate with the council.
The network upgrade will deliver a citywide communications platform to integrate data, voice and video to support front-line applications including online consultation and planning, tax collection and benefit.
Telecoms provider THUS, which struck a £42 million communications contract with the council in 2004, will use the Cisco Unified Communications System to deliver IP telephony services to council staff and a multi-lingual contact centre.
‘Our e-government strategy is not etched in stone - we are always refreshing it and we need a network that allows us to deliver new and enhanced services faster,’ said Glasgow councillor Alan Stewart.
‘We have a £2.2bn annual turnover with over 30,000 staff and deliver services to 630,000 citizens, which is bigger than many corporates, but we are not a single-purpose organisation.
'To run that level of service, we need to deploy economies of scale through working with partners such as Thus and Cisco which will give us the capacity for growth,’ he said.
Stewart says the local authority grew out of other bodies creating a diverse network infrastructure.
‘All sections of the council had a different telecoms infrastructure. With one solution we will have less maintenance costs and IP telephony will save money,’ he added.
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