Business Network News: Eni PUTS ITALTEL VOIP IN ITS COMPANY ENGINE
Worldwide, over eight thousand employees of Eni, a leading company in the energy sector, are now users of the Eni VoIP 2.0 integrated communication network, which uses Italtel’s and Cisco’s VoIP technologies for the integrated management of voice, data, and video between the over 100 interconnected sites. The new Eni network, which is based on the Italtel i-SSW Softswitch multiservice platform, is today one of the world’s biggest in terms of size, performance and technologies used. And it provides multimedia services to specialists who make VoIP, as means of communication, one of the building blocks of their business, with clear advantages in terms of management costs and corporate productivity.
The corporate VoIP 2.0 network has been officially launched at Eni, one of the world’s leading companies in the exploration, production, transport, transformation and sale of oil and natural gas. Partners in the design and development of the new communications network are Italtel, the supplier and system integrator of the Softswitch platform and its services; Cisco Systems, Italtel’s strategic partner, who developed the VoIP services and the Unified Communication network; and BT Italia, one of the biggest providers in Italy of voice and data communications services, fixed and mobile, for business customers, in the role of Project Management and System Integrator.
Advanced and integrated communications services like video communication for the cost of an ordinary telephone call; fixed/mobile convergence services and support for dual mode terminals (WiFi and GSM/UMTS) offered to users at some Eni sites; integrated voice, data and video applications on the user’s PC; integration of voice, fax and video messages in email (Unified Messaging); click-to-dial on the Eni VoIP 2.0 portal to call someone without having to dial their telephone number – these services are being provided right now by the Italtel i-SSW multi-service Softswitch platform, the beating heart of Eni’s communications network.
The Italtel platform has been designed and developed to: manage multimedia internet-protocol networks for companies and service providers; interconnect traditional networks simply and reliably; optimise clients’ existing infrastructures by protecting their existing investments and greatly reducing their management costs. For the Eni network, in particular, the Italtel Softswitch has been equipped with features to provide fixed/mobile convergence services and business intelligence applications with regard to the network’s traffic and usage information.
In the Eni VoIP 2.0 network, the 106 sites already served by VoIP are interconnected via geographic IP VPN connections, i.e. Virtual Private Networks over the IP protocol distributed over different user groups, totally separate from the public telephone network and equipped with advanced data transmission security solutions. This means that major reduction in costs are achieved due to the elimination of trunk telephone calls over legacy TDM systems between company sites. The Eni VoIP 2.0 network is therefore capable of generating efficiency and added value, which have tangible field benefits and return real advantages: reduction of communications network usage costs; access to innovative integrated IP services; and consequent increases in company productivity.
Eni believes in the development of communications as a driving element of its business, and it has already planned several stages for evolving its VoIP 2.0 network, including the installation, in order to reduce disaster recovery times, of a second Italtel i-SSW platform at the company HQ in Rome and the multi-carrier interconnection of the corporate VoIP network.
“For the first time,” said Giorgio Bertolina, CEO of Italtel, “we’ve tackled a huge international communications project for the large corporate and enterprise sector. This is a demonstration of Italtel’s focus on the enterprise market in Italy and abroad, developed using our consolidated knowledge of managing complex telecom projects for the biggest operators at international level. And with the Eni project we’ve shown that we’re not just an integration company working in the TLC sector, but that we’re a total supplier of complete solutions, ranging from our proprietary system, the i-SSW Softswitch, to the integration of products and systems from third parties, right up to professional network services such as survey, assessment, network design, network planning, network engineering, and interoperability testing.”
Lastly, as part of the integrated communication project undertaken by Italtel for Eni, the Eni VoIP 2.0 web portal has been set up to disseminate information for VoIP users: for example, there’s a tutorial on how to use the IP terminal, updates on new services available to the user, adding the Click to Dial service for VoIP calls without having to manually enter the phone number of the user you want to call, accessing VoIP network performance indicators, and the current status of, and updates to, the VoIP project.
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Italtel Group The Italtel Group designs, develops and implements next generation multiservice integrated network systems, using state-of-the-art products and a system integration capacity that guarantees reliable infrastructures, open to networking and flexible in terms of technology development. These solutions are intended for telecommunications operators (fixed and mobile), Internet Service Providers, large enterprises and the public sector. Italtel turnover in FY 2006 was 546.1 million euro, and the company currently has around 2,400 staff. The body of shareholders of Italtel Group S.p.A., parent company of Italtel S.p.A., is composed as follows: Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (48.77%), Telecom Italia Group (19.37%), Cisco Systems Group (18.40%), Advent International (8.65%), Brera Capital Partners (2.16%), Cordusio Fiduciaria - which holds in trust the shares of employees, managers and directors of the Group as well as the Company’s own shares - (2.65%). Website: http://www.italtel.com