BT will stick with its longtime telecom equipment vendor Nortel when it shifts its U.K. and Indian call centers to Voice over
IP
The London carrier will phase in Nortel Centrex IP ACD (Automatic Call Distribution) systems over the coming months. By year’s end, more than
2,000 of BT’s 10,000 customer service reps will be IP-enabled.
Nortel’s i2004 IP phones will also be distributed to BT agents as part of
the deal. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
“Providing this capability to BT highlights how our customers can evolve to
an IP solution and build on the full capabilities and benefits of their
current investments,” Mark Weeks, a Nortel managing director of the BT
account, said in a statement
Nortel Centrex IP ACD products let companies create virtual contact centers
that span wide geographic areas and cross multiple time zones, routing
calls to the most appropriate agent available. Separate voice and data
infrastructures can then be merged, resulting in lower management costs.
This is the second VoIP-related deal between Nortel and BT. In December, BT
placed a $5 million order for Nortel’s enterprise VoIP contact center
software. That contract is one of the largest deployments of a VoIP-based
virtual contact center in Europe, Nortel said.
In other BT news, the company said its equipment will be used in Verizon
Dominicana’s nationwide third-generation
Nortel said it has been working with Verizon Dominicana for more than 10
years on a number of new technology projects, including VoIP, wireless and
optical infrastructures.