news Independent Australian footwear retail chain, Payless Shoes has inked a million dollar, three-year deal with Primus Telecom, one of Australia’s largest telecommunication carriers. Primus will provide an integrated Voice and Data Network solution that includes a network-based EFTPOS system plus additional hosted services across the retailer’s 232 stores and its Sydney-based head office.

The deal includes the deployment of a Primus Private IP Network (PIPN) and Accella Hosted Phone System, in place of the current legacy telephony services, across all sites, a cloud-based Managed Firewall and VPN service. Primus Australia is part of Primus Telecommunications Group, with headquarters in McLean Virginia. The Primus Australia network has facilities in 66 cities and 286 DSLAM exchanges across Australia.

According to a statement issued by Primus yesterday, Primus’ PIPN solution offers a fully integrated and managed private IP network based on a Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) network. It employs the benefits of the newest dynamic routing protocols, MPLS traffic isolation, and Quality of Service (QoS) management to generate the modern Layer 3 private network. Primus has designed the network to efficiently assimilate data, video and voice traffic, and EFTPOS transactions on a single data platform.

All Payless Shoes sites will utilise Primus’ business grade Accella Hosted IP Telephone System (HPS). Other Unified Communications features with HPS include voicemail to e-mail, remote office capability on every handset and call forwarding, on every site. Catering to the fast growing numbers of mobile and remote users, Primus plans to provide a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) remote access with its secure, cloud-based Managed Firewall Service.

Primus has promised a high quality, high availability and highly reliable solution with this infrastructure and carrier-grade network equipment, supported by across-the-board tracking and resolution of network events. Primus is setting up a parallel network for each site to enable a smooth changeover to the new infrastructure. This involves new data access, Accella HPS and Internet access, along with conducting a complete User Acceptance Testing program before each site migrates to the new service.

IT Manager of Payless Shoes, Kerry Smith, stated that the reason for the project’s success was Primus’ willingness to work closely with the Payless business team. Speaking about Primus’ flexibility while building a solution around the shoe retailer’s unique needs, Smith said: “Primus is a low bureaucracy, nimble and proactive company with a genuine commitment to delivering excellent results. The provision of a parallel network to ease the transition to the new infrastructure has given the entire company an additional level of comfort and confidence in the project.”

Primus Telecom’s General Manager of Marketing and Products, Andrew Sims, expects the upgraded infrastructure to have benefits for Payless Shoes, such as enhanced communications quality, flexibility, reliability and efficiency across all sites. “We have worked very closely with the Payless team to ensure we deliver infrastructure that matches their current needs but also has the flexibility and scope to support their own business growth and future requirements” Sims stated.

Smith said that Primus would enable Payless to concentrate on the running of its business by taking charge of the solution infrastructure. “Primus came to us with glowing credentials in the retail sector, and as the process unfolded the team demonstrated a genuine understanding of our specific business needs,” Smith explained.

A quick look at Primus Telecom’s solution for Payless Shoes:

• Primus Managed Private IP Network Solution (PIPN)
• Integration of Data, Voice, E-mail and EFTPOS on a single network
• Accella Hosted Phone System across all Payless Shoes offices
• Automatic failover for EFTPOS and telephone services to PSTN
• Dynamically configurable PABX features through a Tool Bar
• Inbuilt Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Services
• Universally available secure remote network access
• Primus Hosted Managed Firewall solution
• High availability and SLAs

Image credit: Natalya Bruner, royalty free

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