The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) is an Australian federal government agency charged with protecting and promoting the human rights of Australian citizens. In the course of its activities HREOC conducts public inquiries, manages diversity tolerance programs and investigates alleged incidents of harassment or discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnicity, gender, marital status, pregnancy or disability. It mediates between the parties in conflict, achieving conciliation whenever possible.
HREOC employs roughly 160 people throughout Australia. The national headquarters occupies three floors of an office tower in central Sydney. The agency must ensure its services are accessible in every Australian state and territory, and in regional and rural areas as readily as in the cities. Consequently, roughly 50 of HREOC's 160 staff are enabled for remote network access and the organisation is a heavy user of teleconferencing services.
Operating in such a decentralised manner, HREOC faced challenges in having infrastructure in place that accommodated such an environment.
"We're a very mobile organisation, there are people on the move all the time," said Ron McLay, IT services manager, HREOC, "In this environment, a powerful, flexible and reliable network is essential."
With its previous set-up, HREOC was relying on switches provided by a vendor that had decided to exit the networking equipment market, and spare parts were becoming almost impossible to obtain.
While HREOC faced daily frustrations with its network infrastructure, it also had great hope for the capabilities that a new powerful, flexible and reliable network would make possible. "We were keenly looking to the future. We knew that we wanted a converged solution and we were looking to IP telephony," said McLay.
HREO tendered for services to cover a data network and an IP voice solution to replace an ageing PABX telephone system.
McLay selected a proposal from Data 3 that was built around ProCurve Networking by HP equipment.
"There wasn't a glitch - it was a beautiful project," said McLay. "I have to say that it was down to two things: the quality of the project management from Data 3 and the ProCurve equipment, which was very good."
"When we turned on the ProCurve equipment the legacy problems that we had been experiencing just disappeared," McLay said.
"For example, we're on three floors and those in the offices furthest from the switch cabinet were experiencing latency problems all the time. Some applications that were very sensitive to latency were failing," he said. "Those problems vanished as soon as we put in the ProCurve kit."
Waiting a second to receive an email is tolerable as long as it doesn't happen too often, but enduring second-long interruptions to a telephone conversation is unbearable. So, while a powerful, flexible and reliable network is highly desirable for data services like email and file transfer, it is absolutely essential for voice over IP (VoIP). The network infrastructure needs to absolutely guarantee quality of service (QoS), both by providing sufficient capacity and by intelligently conveying packets of voice data to their destination ahead of other packets.
"I had been looking at the VoIP market and making site visits for years," said McLay. "I felt the future lay with VoIP, but I couldn't get into VoIP until it was mature enough to be stable, because although staff may put up with a slightly inconsistent data network they would not tolerate a telephone system that does not work 100% efficiently."
With the ProCurve solution in place, HREOC approached the VoIP solution market with a tender document that McLay describes as the most extensive he's ever written in his career. "In the specifications we listed the ProCurve equipment we were using, so the tender respondents would know exactly what we were asking them to do."
Based on these proposals, HREOC selected an Avaya solution installed by NSC. "They did a brilliant job," he said, "it was very smooth."
As a result, HREOC is now enjoying substantial productivity gains as well as significant cost savings.
Some of the savings come from 'toll bypass', which means that the VoIP solution allows the organisation to make long-distance telephone calls without incurring long-distance charges.
Major productivity gains come from the increased functionality and ease of use of the new VoIP solution. For example, voicemail messages can be emailed directly to each employee's inbox, and McLay says that he has programmed the speed dial on his new VoIP telephone handset - something that just wasn't worth the effort with the old PABX.
By far the most important advantages for HREOC are in the area of multi-party telephone conferencing - a vital tool for the organisation's work, which frequently involves investigating and mediating complex disputes in multiple languages around the country. "It is a major part of the business that we do; we're running conference calls all the time," said McLay.
