"NodePhone was the right solution at the right time. NodePhone provides all the affordability and flexibility of VoIP, but call quality is never compromised ... the decision to go with NodePhone services was straightforward and compelling."

Experien Finance IT Manager Trent Renshaw

Internode Business Solution: Experien Finance

Client

Experien Finance

Industry

Financial services

The company

Experien Finance, a specialist Australian finance company that provides a full range of finance products for professionals, specifically servicing the medical and dental industries, has saved thousands of dollars in telephone call costs each month by using Internode's NodePhone MultiLine service.

Business challenge

Founded in 2004, Experien Finance www.experien.com.au is a rapidly growing financial services business that employs people at offices in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.

When the company's Victorian office outgrew its telephone system in 2007, Experien faced a large capital cost to buy proprietary hardware at a time when funds were better used to support the company's growth.

Concurrently, Experien's branches in Adelaide and Perth relocated to larger premises, with both offices requiring new telephone systems to support their expanded employee numbers.

Experien Finance IT Manager Trent Renshaw said the challenge arose when Experien's Melbourne office outgrew its legacy PABX system. "We decided that a proprietary telephone system was both expensive and involved long-term lock-in," he said.

"After a pilot program in Sydney, we decided to run with the Asterisk IP-based PABX, which is an open source telephony engine, in our Melbourne office.

"We did not plan to deploy it as widely as we have, but because of Experien's rapid growth, about the same time, we had to provide phone systems for new offices that were opening in Adelaide and Perth. We added them to the Asterisk server and deployed VoIP handsets in each of those offices."

Internode's solution

The key to the success of this Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) based architecture was to connect the Experien offices using a carrier-grade data communication system.

Experien turned to Internode, choosing to use its NodePhone Voice over Broadband service, which delivers the cost and flexibility benefits of VoIP with the quality of a traditional telephone service. What makes NodePhone unique is that all NodePhone calls travel on Internode's first tier, fully redundant, private national network. This guarantees consistent call quality, unlike the "best effort" services available from Internet-dependent VoIP providers.

Mr. Renshaw said he was aware of Internode's reputation from his previous experience. "I had used NodePhone on a personal level and in another business," he said.

"NodePhone provides all the affordability and flexibility of VoIP, but call quality is never compromised. Melbourne was our flagship site. Within a month of deploying NodePhone there, we decided to roll it out in Adelaide and Perth to meet growth demands for company expansion.

"NodePhone was the right solution at the right time. It was cost-effective and reliable."

Experien operates its Asterisk VoIP management software on a Dell PowerEdge 840 computer, running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. The Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth offices use 20 NodePhone channels, running across Internode's high-speed national broadband network.

Since Experien began using NodePhone, Internode has launched NodePhone MultiLine, a service that provides customers with quick, easy and affordable on-demand access to multiple telephone channels. A standard NodePhone service comes with two voice channels. Using the online NodePhone Toolbox, Internode's MultiLine service allows NodePhone customers to order additional voice channels immediately for just $10 per channel per month.

As well as NodePhone MultiLine, Experien also uses Internode's broadband data and Virtual Private Network (VPN) services at its Adelaide and Perth offices.

Business benefits

In the last 12 months, Experien has grown its head count to 30 people in its Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth branches collectively. During this period, while its call volumes have increased by almost one third, its telephone calls costs have actually decreased by nearly 30 per cent as a result of deploying NodePhone

The reason for the lower call costs despite a surge in call volumes is two-fold.

Firstly, the NodePhone MultiLine service provides Experien with access to Internode's untimed national calls for just 18 cents each. Secondly, NodePhone does not charge for calls between NodePhone services, thus providing free phone calls between the three Experien offices.

Mr. Renshaw said NodePhone MultiLine had proved itself as a corporate-quality alternative to traditional ISDN services. "Because NodePhone is so reliable with no loss of quality, the decision to go with NodePhone services was straightforward and compelling," he said.

"The NodePhone service is much more affordable to both set up and to operate. Even a simple Commander system would have cost us thousands of dollars to service the Adelaide and Perth offices. With NodePhone, our hardware cost just $150 per phone handset. We already had the Asterisk infrastructure up and running in Melbourne, so the cost of adding the extra offices was negligible.

"Melbourne has gone from having only 12 staff to now having 20 while head count in Adelaide and Perth has also grown. Being a sales-based organisation, our consultants spend pretty much all their lives on the phone, so our call traffic has increased possibly by as much as one third.

"Although our Sydney office is still using ISDN services and a proprietary Avaya PABX, just getting those three states on to NodePhone has put a dent of about $3000 in our monthly landline bill."

Mr. Renshaw said Experien's new telephone system also had a much lower cost of management as he could manage it remotely from Sydney. "NodePhone with Asterisk offers us much better value for money without locking us into proprietary hardware," he said.

To learn more about Internode's business services, please visit www.internode.on.net or telephone 13-NODE (13 66 33).