Light at the end of several tunnels

Date Released: Wed, 26 January 2011 15:19 +0200

It seems that we will be in a position to start a limited roll-out of phones early next week. Planning is in progress to determine the "best" areas to tackle first, and we will shortly be notifying affected departments.

The delay has been frustrating for everyone, and the basic cause is Rhodes' insistence that the PBX system be installed to comply with the requirements put forward in the original tender. It has become clear that the supplier (BCX), and the manufacturer (Avaya), under-estimated what was specified.

The breakthrough has been the acceptance by Avaya that the problems being experienced at Rhodes are real, that what Rhodes wants to do is completely reasonable, and that - according to Avayas own documentation - it should be possible to implement it with the hardware and software components ordered by Rhodes.

As a result, Avaya have provided upgrades to significant parts of the PBX software, and have undertaken to either fix or replace the original handsets with ones capable of running Open-SIP protocols. While Avaya try and fix the handset, they will provide upgraded models that have been proved to work. The first batch of 190 replacements was delivered yesterday, and arrangements are being made for a further batch of 400 phones to be delivered. This process will continue until either all 1500 phones are replaced, or the software problem is fixed.