C.a.T.S. makes substantial investment in IBM Voice

C.a.T.S. has always been keen to be the leader with regards to voice technology and what is to offer. Johan Grobler, MD of C.a.T.S. Pty (Ltd), maintains that new technology must be tested and tried in-house before customers are approached.

"We are very excited about this investment and what it means to our offering to current and potential clients alike," says Grobler.

What the investment entails, among other things, is the latest IBM technology in the new pSeries p5-520 server with a DTTA and a DTEA card. The DTTA (digital telephony trunk adapter) is able to accommodate four E1 lines, which constitutes 30 telephone lines per E1 line.

"This is tested and trusted technology used by most of the major telcos in central and southern Africa; it is our aim to use this configuration for development and providing our clients with the best in technology for training," Grobler continues.

Part of the new configuration is a new and exciting technology from IBM, the DTEA (Digital Telephony Ethernet Adaptor). This enables C.a.T.S. to do development on IVR services where the call enters the IVR as a traditional PSTN call and is transferred as a voice over IP call.

This places C.a.T.S. in a strategic position to develop applications that will suit virtually any call centre configuration.

Grobler added: "It is invaluable for us to be able to give first-hand information to clients regarding new technologies, thus affording us much-needed confidence taking services and products to market, while also giving clients confidence in us as a technology provider."

The voice over IP solution gives clients the opportunity to leverage the investment they made in IVR infrastructure by adding the VOIP technology virtually on the fly.

"We are very keen to assist clients in protecting their investment and capital spent on development of applications and integration," says Grobler.

One of the advantages of the new pSeries from IBM is that the server will run several operating systems concurrently in logical partitions (LPAR). The core operating systems consist of two AIX sessions, one RedHat session and one 17 Suse. This will have a very positive influence on factors like total cost of ownership, support, management and business continuity.

Grobler concludes: "I am very excited by the fact that C.a.T.S. will have one of the most technologically advanced labs in the world regarding voice and wireless applications, on the eve of our 10-year anniversary."