Much-maligned Nortel has managed some good news this week. Nortel`s Government Solutions division has completed the core network for the new U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) VoIP system within 180 days of the initial purchase orders - on time and to specifications as part of the 10-year, $300 million Telephone Systems Replacement Project (TSRP) award.
Features of the build include redundant, geographically-dispersed service delivery points for high survivability, a state-of-the-art demo facility in Columbia, Md., and a NOC, a help desk and an agency test facilities in Woodlawn, Md.
Nortel Government Solutions also boasts of implementing a "very intensive" VoIP applications suite that includes a management information system for custom reporting and advanced telephony features to improve overall call handling efficiency.
When completed, the new system is expected to be one of the largest enterprise VoIP deployments in the world. It is already supporting more than 125 offices and more than 35,000 calls daily. Anywhere from 12 to 16 offices will be added each week until all 1,526 offices are online. If Nortel keeps this pace of approximately 500 added offices per year, the installations will be completed in about three years. To date, the new system has handled over 1.6 million calls.
