Cardiff Schools Turn PSTN Switch-Off into Opportunity for Improved Teacher Agility with Avaya Cloud Office

London, United Kingdom - August 13, 2024: Cardiff Council has turned the UK's PSTN switch-off into an opportunity for the digital transformation of its schools' communications systems with an investment in Avaya Cloud Office by Ring Central, part of the Avaya Communication and Collaboration Suite. With the migration of 72 out of 128 schools already complete, the council informed that it is ahead of its transition schedule and teachers and staff are gaining communications' agility and business continuity. In addition, the council confirmed that it has gained significant cost efficiencies and economies of scale, as well as ease-of-use and analytics data for IT admins.

"We not only needed to transition all the schools ahead of the PSTN switch-off deadline, but we had an opportunity to choose a communications system that would enable economies of scale and a robust business continuity solution if stay-at-home rules were ever put in place again," said Huw David, Operational Manager for ICT Services. "Our schools' phone systems had grown organically over many years. They all had different arrangements with their own negotiated contracts, and we were dealing with differing types of handsets and technologies. Everything was done repeatedly. We did a survey and it looked like around £600,000 was being spent on telephony across Cardiff schools per year but with Avaya Cloud Office, we were looking at potential savings in the region of £350,000, which for a public sector organisation, is money that could be diverted to spend in other much needed areas."

Just over 18 months into the transition, 2,500 users have been onboarded to Avaya Cloud Office, an all-in-one cloud-based phone system enabling teams to communicate and collaborate effortlessly and effectively, no matter where they are, from a single platform. The solution provides an agile way to work, giving teachers and staff the flexibility to be contactable on one number wherever they are in the school building or elsewhere - although they can manage their availability to protect their focus time or personal time, if they need to.

As a public sector organisation, Cardiff Council must comply with procurement processes, including the due diligence to evaluate several digital telephony products sets on the market. Avaya's ecosystem partner, FourNet, a specialist in secure cloud, CX consulting and digital transformation in the public sector, helped the council's education department find an appropriate solution. And because FourNet was already on the all-Wales public sector procurement framework, this helped with the purchasing process.

Steve Joyner, VP UK&I Avaya, said: "The PSTN switch-off is a great opportunity to rethink the tools schools use for communication, and what could be possible if all the separate siloed pieces of technology worked together in an integrated and holistic way. Cardiff Council had the vision to recognise this, and its schools will be well positioned to take advantage of all the communication and collaboration benefits that a world-class cloud phone system has to offer for many years to come."