Leading technology, onsite support
In 2010, Durham County Council selected Maintel in a competitive tender as part of the Government PSN Framework. The tender was for an initial 2+2 contract: the first two years involved the transformation of the Durham County Council network, followed by another two years of technical support. In order to successfully secure the contract, Maintel worked closely with partner Mitel to design a bespoke solution. The resulting proposition was based on Mitel technology, with Maintel leading the implementation.
Within the first three months of the project, Maintel deployed the central telephony infrastructure and applications across the Council’s primary data centre in Tanfield and its back-up location within County Hall, including the set-up of approximately 5,000 new handsets. Maintel installed a fully resilient UC platform using Mitel MiVoice Business, a highly scalable, proven solution that underpins and delivers voice, unified messaging, mobility, presence, conferencing, collaboration and additional applications.
At the same time Maintel also installed Mitel’s MiContact Center Business solution for the contact centre, initially provided for 150 agents. This platform integrates with MiCollab UC, call recording and includes real-time, historical, and customisable reporting tools, highly customisable interactive voice response (IVR) routing, multichannel workflow routing, outbound dialling and messaging and integrations with Salesforce.com and other CRM systems.
The second phase was the provision of support and the delivery of a number of enhancements to the solution to meet the needs of the council as it evolved throughout the initial contract period. Maintel again supplied a dedicated onsite resource, operating as part of the Durham ICT team, ensuring prompt attention to any potential issues and offering guidance and advice. The company provides a bespoke SLA with enhanced cover for critical sites.
This second phase ran until September 2014. The contract was subsequently retendered in the summer of 2015 via the same government framework, and Maintel won a new four-year support contract in September 2015. The breadth and quality of services provided by Maintel have allowed Durham County Council to extend its partner services in a number of ways. These include providing network and telephony services to a number of schools and social housing partners in the region.