As you know the UKSPA email network is a service for members only. However, at the Langstone Meeting we had a workshop cancelled and a guest disappointed. Paul Kerr from Warwickshire County Council came to the meeting because we were offering a workshop about telephony and he has to give a presentation this week to his directorate. Faced with this situation I concluded that UKSPA members may have advice and ideas which would cover some of the things which were going to be discussed at the workshop. So I hope you don't mind this email question from a non-member. Paul has four centres which he would like to link with a common telephony solution (broadband, voice, fax).
The centres vary in size:

1. 52 units
2. 24 units
3. 12 units
4. 12 units

Warwickshire County Council would like to manage the bills. They would prefer to stay with wires. If you have grappled with similar telephony issues yourself or know someone with whom it would be useful for Paul to speak please could you email Paul directly and do copy me in with replies where appropriate.

I currently have SETP (1 tech park with 4 main buildings and 5 remote building working from one central switch). In a previous life I connected 2 parks, and 5 buildings with 2 different switches together. Happy to have a chat. Stephen Lewis, Manager (Property) - Scottish Enterprise Lanarkshire 

We've reviewed some of the options and have just finished running a Pilot of Voice & Data across the Main site tied back to a single building. Give me a call if you'd like to discuss further. D C Grindrod , Deputy Director, University Of Warwick Science Park

When I was looking after the parks in Ulster we used the Cisco VoIP to link the three sites across the region. Serviced by NTL at the time it worked well and allowed the functionality that perhaps Paul is looking for. It had full digital functionality and the added benefit of soft telephony for individuals on the move around the county. Not sure if this of any help but more than happy to discuss with Paul if he thinks it would be useful. Chris, B&W Consulting 

There is a company who provide this service and a lot more based in the Sheffield Technology Park incubator in Sheffield. If you can find the general number off the web for the incubator they should be able to help. Fiona Ellwood, Urban Mines 

In terms of a single solution, the best thing to do may be to prepare a ‘tender document’ outlining what you hope to achieve in terms of linking the sites as well as providing internet connections, and then approach large providers such as BT or Telewest and ask them to provide a specification and quote for a solution. I think that in this day and age it should not be too onerous a task for a provider such as these because they will be able to use their existing networks to link the sites and provide the required service. One possible solution may also be to look at voice over ip (VOIP), so as a result of this it may also be worth looking at some primarily ‘internet’ provider type companies such as MCI Worldcom. Each of the four sites would then have a switch, providing connections to each of the offices on that site. If you went for a VOIP solution then the internet and telephone can be provided using a singe Cat5 cable, thereby potentially halving any cabling installation costs. If you would like any more info, or contacts (I have some in some of the main providers), please let me know and I will be happy to help you out where I can. Ben Hughes, Aston Science Park