Anglicare Australia Selects Siemens Enterprise Communications for Voice and Data Networking

ANDOVER, MA--(Marketwire - August 17, 2009) -  Siemens Enterprise Communications Group (SEN Group) today announced that Anglicare Australia, an Anglican Church-based network of advocacy and charity organizations caring for people in need, is leveraging the company's seamless voice and data connectivity to provide IT infrastructure and Voice over IP (VoIP) telephony for its 1,200 employees across 46 locations in South Australia. Using a combination of SEN Group's IP telephony and Enterasys wired and wireless networking solutions, Anglicare Australia provides cost-effective, reliable connectivity to its care providers and staff, empowering them to better serve Southern Australia's most at-risk population of residents.

To replace their end-of-life network and telephony systems, Anglicare evaluated a number of leading network vendors and ultimately chose SEN Group based on several criteria, including ease-of-use, reliability, scalability, security, interoperability, support for IPv6 and total cost of ownership.

"Before the SEN Group's solutions were in place, our network infrastructure was in a bad state -- inefficient, static, difficult to manage and extremely expensive to support," said Daryl Eckermann, IT manager for Anglicare Australia. "We were in need of a next-generation network that would provide the foundation for data and voice collaboration for our many locations, including wireless remote connectivity for traveling staff, and most importantly, easy management capabilities for our small IT staff."

Today, Anglicare's data and voice network, powered by SEN Group, enables data collaboration, remote connectivity and reliable VoIP service, optimizes productivity for care providers and administration, and has already provided a significant cost savings on telephony services.

"Until we installed the HiPath 3800 solution, we didn't realize how many site-to-site phone calls were being made across the external telephony system and how much those calls were costing us," Eckermann said. "Once the deployment was complete, we saw almost immediate savings on our phone bill, which was unexpected. Our original return on investment (ROI) projection on the telephony segment of the new network was five years. We've already revised that figure to less than three years before the project pays for itself."

Enterasys C-Series and B-Series switches for infrastructure and Enterasys wireless solutions for remote connectivity empower the new Anglicare network to prioritize and secure voice traffic in 46 locations, including all its aged care facilities, emergency assistance centers, rehabilitation centers, suicide and grief counseling hotlines and special-needs child care centers. The new network provides reliable support for business-critical applications such as clinical care management software, e-mail, a company intranet, quality management database and operations software such as finance, payroll and fundraising management. Traveling caregivers specializing in home-based outreach can now rely on secure, remote connectivity, while counselors leverage the robust VoIP solution for 24/7 availability. Nursing staff in Anglicare's aged care facilities use the Enterasys' convergence-optimized wireless solutions for wire-free patient care zones to help them manage medication dispensing and keep resident care plans protected. An IT team of just five manages the network and telephony infrastructure, using the integrated Enterasys Network Management Suite (NMS), which delivers visibility and control to the centralized operations team.

"The nature of work we do demands absolute voice and data network uptime," Eckermann said. "If a glitch on the network were to result in the loss of voice service, or a breach of sensitive client data, the results could be disastrous. We've seen employee productivity increase significantly since the deployment. Since implementing the integrated SEN Group solution, we haven't experienced any degradation of voice quality, or any security issues with our data."

About Siemens Enterprise Communications Group (SEN Group)

The SEN Group is a premier provider of end-to-end enterprise communications, including voice, network infrastructure and security solutions that use open, standards-based architectures to unify communications and business applications for a seamless collaboration experience. This award-winning "Open Communications" approach enables organizations to improve productivity and reduce costs through easy-to-deploy solutions that work within existing IT environments, delivering operational efficiencies. It is the foundation for the company's OpenPath® commitment that enables customers to mitigate risk and cost-effectively adopt unified communications. Jointly owned by The Gores Group and Siemens AG, SEN Group companies include Siemens Enterprise Communications, Cycos, and Enterasys Networks. For more information about the SEN Group or Enterasys please visit www.siemens-enterprise.com or www.enterasys.com.

Note: Siemens Enterprise Communications & Co K.G. is a trademark licensee of Siemens AG. HiPath, OpenOffice, OpenScape and OpenStage, are registered trademarks of Siemens Enterprise Communications & Co K.G. or its affiliates. All other company, brand, product and service names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.