Fast food giant Competitive Foods Australia Pty Ltd (CFAL) has signed a $6 million three-year deal with Primus Telecom, a part of PTGi (Primus Telecommunications Group, Inc.) NYSE:PTGI, to provide upgraded, advanced voice, data and managed WiFi services. This builds on a long-term relationship between the two companies which started in 2003.
Primus’ Private IP Network (PiPN) solution for CFAL covers the supply, installation, and commissioning as well as the ongoing management of a fully integrated and managed Private IP Network to over 340 sites across Australia including Hungry Jacks and KFC in Western Australia and Northern Territory.
The solution is based on a Primus MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching) network core to create a modern Layer 3 private network, designed to efficiently integrate Voice, Data and Video traffic on a single platform.
Under the new contract Primus will be upgrading the Hungry Jack’s stores to ADSL2+ as well as incorporating a connection providing disaster recovery for CFAL’s Head Office using Primus’ Melbourne Data Centre.
After completing a successful trial and implementation at CFAL’s South Australia state branch, Primus will also replace legacy telephony with its Accella Hosted IP Telephone System. Where deployed, Primus’ business grade hosted communications solution will see all hardware housed and managed by Primus providing a single integrated phone system across CFAL’s operations. Intelligence previously housed in the phone system, will be provided from inside Primus’ Accella private cloud and delivered via SIP across Primus’ MPLS network.
In addition to reducing high cost legacy PSTN and ISDN rental charges, Primus Accella Hosted Phone System offers Unified Communications features (voicemail to email, fax to email etc) and business continuity solutions. With recent natural disasters experienced across the country, disaster recovery automated by the Accella cloud in the event of service unavailability was critical.
“This project will further streamline CFAL’s national communications network, improving efficiency, flexibility, quality and availability,” explains Andrew Sims, Primus Telecom’s General Manager of Marketing and Products.
Joey Butler, National IT Manager for CFAL believes the communications upgrade will allow CFAL to get on with doing what it does best – looking after its customers.
“Running on a tight budget and having a very streamlined IT department made leveraging of Primus’ ability to offer end-to-end management; hosted, expertise and account management services essential. Primus acts as a member of our IT Team and removes the need for additional support headcount and the headache plus expense of technology maintenance and management. Now all the hardware is housed and managed by Primus, so we can get on with our day-to-day business and continue to focus on delivering the best dining experience to our customers,” he said.
Primus’ new contract also encompasses the supply of Primus’ Managed WiFi solution launched on 20 December 2011 for 285 stores with the remaining 65 in Q1 2012. Powered by Aruba Networks, Primus’ Managed WiFi solution uses 802.11n technology (to accommodate the massive influx of smart phones and tablets) and access point controllers from the Primus cloud. The Primus Managed WiFi Solution is a complete turn-key solution involving the supply, configuration, maintenance, management, monitoring and support of all end devices for the term of the contract.
Primus Contract services for CFAL at a glance:
- Traditional Fixed Telephony
- Accella Hosted IP Telephone System
- Primus Managed Private IP Network Solution (PiPN)
- Primus Layer 2 VPLS Solution
- Primus Managed Router Service (MRS)
- Primus Data Centre services
- Primus Managed WiFi solution
/ENDS
About Primus Telecom www.primus.com.au
Primus Telecom is one of Australia’s largest telecommunications carriers offering a comprehensive range of high speed broadband, data, Internet, web hosting and voice products, servicing both business and residential sectors. The Primus network provides nationwide coverage through its own backbone network with facilities in 66 cities and 286 DSLAM exchanges across Australia. Primus operates its own fibre network in the five major capital cities, delivering a range of business direct-connect services including IP, Ethernet, ATM, ISDN, high speed broadband, data centre and inbound as well as outbound voice services.