Marcom Voice and Data Communications

Bruce Grove Primary School is a mixed gender, non-denominational, primary school located in Tottenham north London.  It currently educates more than 400 pupils with an age range of three to eleven years.

Challenge

The school had been a client of Marcom since 2005 and its telecommunications were based on a Siemens HiPath 3350 telephone system. Owing to continued expansion and consequent increase in staff numbers, the client approached Marcom to add additional users to the system. Unfortunately this was not possible as the existing system was being used to its full capacity. Naturally any change to the school’s telecommunications would necessitate working within the usual exacting budget considerations.

Solution

The client had been pleased with their Siemens system and so Gary Bond, the Marcom Account Manager responsible for the company’s relationship with Bruce Grove School, recommended changing the system to a Siemens HiPath 3550. This would accommodate a larger number of users and have spare capacity in case of future growth in the school’s staff numbers. Gary also pointed out the importance of allowing certain staff to be contactable throughout the school site at all times. This would be particularly apposite in emergencies, for example if a child were to be injured in a part of the site not near to a fixed phone. These staff members could include the head teacher, the school caretaker and school wardens.

Results

The issues of future expansion and contact throughout the site were taken on board. The existing HiPath 3350 phone system was replaced with the larger capacity HiPath 3550 system. Base stations, to allow the use of DECT cordless phones, were installed throughout the school and a trial gigaset (cordless phone) was supplied. The benefits of mobility were immediately apparent and three additional gigasets were promptly ordered. The number of gigasets on the site has subsequently increased to five.

Bruce Grove Primary’s Finance & Resource Officer, Justin Watson, commented “Your sales service was second to none, and this was reflected right down to post installation. We were particularly impressed with your DECT system as it allowed our mobile staff to become even more mobile. In general we are extremely happy with Marcom Communications customer focus throughout its Sales, Engineers and Technical support team. The Account Manager was particularly helpful and professional with his willingness to arrange meetings based on our needs. We would recommend Marcom’s services to any other establishment with advance telecommunication needs with the bonus of a smooth and dedicated team.”