Water company signs £30m deal with Cable & Wireless

New contract will help improve staff communication

United Utilities, the UK’s largest listed water company, has signed a five-year deal worth £30m with Cable & Wireless (C&W) Worldwide.

The telecommunications provider is revitalising United Utilities’ aged voice technology with IP telephony services for its 300 UK sites including datacentres, water works and two key contact centres.

Now when United Utilities staff access core business applications, such as those provided by SAP, they will connect over C&W’s high-bandwidth multi-service platform (MSP).

By converging voice and data services onto the MSP platform, United Utilities claims it will benefit from reduced cost of ownership and the flexibility to access a range of data applications such as high-definition videoconferencing, IPCCTV and IP telephony.

The water company insists that the deal was driven by its aims to improve customer experience. It believes the increased delivery speed and service reliability offered by the MSP will increase the rate at which it can deal with calls in its contact centre, which will be of particular benefit during busy periods.

Jim Marsh, CEO at C&W Worldwide, added: “United Utilities performs a critical service and having the right telecoms infrastructure and services in place is crucial. For us, managing its voice estate and keeping its sites in constant contact means United Utilities can do what it does best: keeping its public in water, gas and electricity supplies."