Fife Council has reduced its annual phone bill by £2m with the installation of a new voice over IP (VoIP) communications network.
The drop from a £2.5m to a £500,000 annual bill will allow the council to recoup a £7.5m capital investment by 2015.
The system has provided some unexpected advantages, according to the council's programme director Linda Robertson.
“Following a minor fire, the ability to have phone numbers ‘follow’ us proved invaluable," she said.
"We were able to continue working without any disruption to council services and without the need for external IT support."
The council replaced more than 12,000 council phones across 350 sites with VoIP handsets.
Individuals are allocated numbers that will reach them wherever they are working, even if at home.
Budget savings from the project were spent on improving the health and safety and performance of IT networks in schools across the region.
The system comes from vendor Affiniti.
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