Foehn wins place in council communications framework

Communication systems integrator Foehn has been appointed as a provider of internet protocol (IP) telephony services through the new Network Services framework agreement for local authorities. Foehn is already a certified G-Cloud supplier.

The adoption and use of IP telephony across the public sector is growing and its increasing popularity is reflected in the fact that it has been allocated its own lot as one of ten in the new framework agreement.

Foehn said its expertise in open source systems enables it to reduce private and public sector telephony costs, increase efficiencies and transform business practices. For example, the company recently helped Boston Borough Council to almost halve its annual telephony costs by helping the local authority to switch to an IP telephony system.

“Part of the objective of the new framework is to enable smaller, innovative telephony providers such as Foehn to trade with the public sector,” said Julian Barrow, sales director at Foehn. “New and emerging IP telephony systems not only present government bodies with the opportunity to reduce their communications costs, but also achieve a lot more than they did previously, including productivity improvements and efficiency gains.”

Awarded by the Crown Commercial Service (CCS), the Network Services agreement is expected to save the public sector approximately 16 percent in their comms costs, releasing savings of at least £59 million.

The ten lots within the agreement are IP telephony services, data access services, local connectivity services, traditional telephony services, inbound telephony services, mobile voice and data services, paging services, video conferencing services, audio conferencing services and integrated communications.