Communications

Case Study:

Strength in unity for TDC customers

11 December 2007

Founded in 1986, Denmark's leading communications provider TDC (formerly Telecom Denmark) employs more than 12,000 people and delivers its services to millions of customers.

TDC has always been at the forefront of communications technology development, and prides itself on the delivery of solutions that help its customers to communicate efficiently and securely. This approach often includes deploying and using the technologies in-house to prove their effectiveness in the workplace. The company believes that new technology should be assessed before it is passed on to customers as a product bundle, to make sure the TDC team fully understands the issues that customer face when deploying a new system. TDC employees in different departments, such as sales and marketing, also participate in pilot user groups and adopt new features into their day-to-day work. This helps them understand the technologies and how customer can use them to fully enhance their business processes.

For example, TDC was among the first providers in Denmark to introduce Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005. Now, 12,000 employees across the company use instant messaging (IM) and presence-awareness information in day-to-day communication with colleagues. Based on this experience, the company is deploying the solution to a growing number of customers who use the technology to work more flexibly and efficiently.

Recently, TDC has experienced an increased demand from enterprise customers who want to lower communications costs through integrated voice over IP (VoIP) technology. Customers also want to integrate all their communications channels into one client/server infrastructure. "By combining software-powered telephony with presence awareness and IM, companies can streamline business communications and increase productivity," says Jan Petersen, unified communications project leader at TDC.

Unified communications is the goal of most TDC customers, but their existing communications infrastructures vary greatly. Some have already implemented VoIP in some capacity. Others are working with aging private branch exchange (PBX) systems that they have yet to retire. TDC wants to offer each of these businesses the unified communications roadmap that suits its exact needs. In particular, it wants to help customers make a smooth transition to a true unified communications environment while minimising the need to replace existing technology investments.

With this goal in mind, and as part of a product assessment strategy, TDC decided to create a unified communications solution based on its own traditional telephony network. "This way, we can see how VoIP integrates with existing telephony systems and demonstrate clearly how a flexible working environment and greater collaboration tools can reduce costs," says Petersen.

TDC decided to be among the first to deploy Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, a real-time, unified communications infrastructure based on Session Initiation Protocol standards. The technology delivers software-powered VoIP that integrates with existing messaging and telephony infrastructures. The solution builds on Live Communications Server 2005 by combining VoIP with tools such as enhanced presence and IM, as well as audio, visual and Web-based multi-party conferencing.

In December 2006, Petersen and the TDC IT team deployed a pilot environment that connects the company's existing Nortel PBX with Office Communications Server 2007. The pilot included 100 users from across the organisation, such as members of the sales, project management and technical support departments.

With help from Microsoft Services, the team focused on assessing the integration of voice, IM and presence features in a highly secure unified communications environment. "Microsoft Services was involved every step of the way, and we could count on its professional team to give us the support that we needed," says Petersen.

The pilot architecture includes Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Standard Edition, which seamlessly combines presence, IM, voice calls and conferencing features. Office Communicator 2007 connects to a Nortel PBX through an AudioCodes Mediant 2000 gateway, making it possible for users to call contacts over the data network from their computers with a single click. TDC's remote employees use Office Communicator Mobile client, which offers the functionalities of Office Communicator 2007 for wireless devices.

Two AudioCodes Mediant 2000 gateways are connected to the Nortel PBX and then to the public switched telephone network. AudioCodes offers high-performance gateways that easily integrate with Office Communications Server 2007 and exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging to provide excellent voice quality.

Users are provided with a unified inbox via Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging, enabling them to access all e-mail and voice messages as well as appointments, from any phone. Exchange Server 2007 also acts as a central voicemail system, so voice messages appear together with e-mail messages in a user's inbox.

In addition, TDC employees use IP-based devices to communicate with each other. These include LG-Nortel IP phones that display Office Outlook 2007 contact lists and presence availability, and the Microsoft RoundTable conferencing and collaboration device, which integrates with Office Communications Server 2007 to enable on-premise Live Meeting conferencing with a 360-degree view of meting attendees in a conference room.

The pilot programme demonstrated to TDC that Office Communications Server integrates seamlessly with existing telephony systems to deliver a unified communications environment. Using a combination of VoIP presence and IM, employees can contact colleagues faster and more conveniently. TDC is now confident that its customers will benefit from the integration of Office Communications Server 2007 with existing PBX systems. This in turn will help customers to increase productivity and lower communications overhead. "We have learned a lot from this pilot and we look forward to rolling out Office Communications Server 2007 fully," says Petersen. "Our project managers know and understand the unified communications vision, and they can pass on that knowledge to our customers."

The solution has enabled employees to work more flexibly, as they can click on a person's contact icon and their call is automatically directed to that person. "With Office Communications Server 2007, telephone calls follow users wherever they are," says Petersen. "Once our pilot group became familiar with using the Office Communicator 2007 client, and the click-to-call method of contacting colleagues, they found it much faster to talk to each other and preferred it over using their standard phones."

Employees were also quick to take advantage of the integration of Office Communications Server 2007 with devices powered by Windows Mobile version 5.0 and Windows Mobile 6 software. "Many of our salespeople are regularly on the road visiting customers, and they need to connect remotely," says Petersen. "The look and feel of the Office Communicator Mobile client is almost identical to the desktop version, so they get the full unified communications experience on their mobile devices."

TDC's employees were already familiar with IM and presence features in Live Communications Server 2005, but they are particularly enthusiastic about the enhancements in Communications Server 2007. With the latest version of presence, employees can set different levels of access for different colleagues? in addition to the automatic presence status based on an employee's Office Outlook 2007 calendar, computer activity or call status, people can manually add a customised message specifying the best way to reach them, and can control who sees this information by assigning contacts to groups.

This means that team members can make it easier for people to contact them on urgent issues while screening out routine queries that they can respond to later. "With Office Communicator 2007, users can see whether to make contact immediately or to follow up at a different time," says Petersen. "If an employee needs to find an answer to a query urgently, he or she can check the presence indicator to contact colleagues through the most appropriate channel."

TDC employees have been able to reduce the number of face-to-face meetings they have by arranging Web conferences with the on-premise version of Office Live Meeting hosted by Office Communications Server 2007. The Active Directory service provides authentication and encryption for conferences and other audio conversations, and employees have control over the privileges of attendees when setting up a conference.

TDC can now hold conferences with plug-and-play devices such as Microsoft RoundTable, which are easy to set up and configure. All internal users and external conference attendees can view participants in the conference room, and benefit from sophisticated Web conferencing features whether they are joining from their desks or from remote locations. "We believe that, in time, about half of our meetings will be conducted through on-premise Office Live Meeting Web conferencing, especially those where we have established a relationship with the client and need to schedule ongoing update meetings," says Petersen.

TDC can now connect with business partners and customers using the federation feature available in Office Communications Server 2007. For example, an employee can initiate IM conversations, view presence information, and take part in conferences with colleagues in partner or customer organisations. This feature will also help TDC customers to reduce voice costs through toll-free and highly secure collaboration. "Communications between federated organisations are encrypted end-to-end within Office Communications Server 2007, and we will pass on this benefit to our customers as a very strong selling point," says Petersen.

"In addition, federation within Office Communications Server 2007 makes it easier for our partners to contact us at a convenient time, and it helps us to maintain strong relationships with other organisations," concludes Petersen. "We anticipate that federation will be just as important to our customers."