Residents of gated communities often have all the luxuries and technology they require readily at their disposal. Reliable, efficient Internet connectivity, however, has not been so easy to secure. Until now...
The situation
South Africa's burgeoning gated communities house many upper and middle class residents whose busy, technology-reliant lifestyles make Internet connectivity a vital necessity. The ever-growing trend of working from home or working flexi-time provides an even greater need for efficient and reliable home-based Internet connectivity. However, this is not always easy to secure.
“Many residents in gated communities can't get landline telephone services within a reasonable amount of time,” says Louis Yssel, CEO of Microsoft provider YSL. “We've found that traditional POP3 mail services don't meet the needs of the users. Additionally, there is no way of delivering faxing services on an IP network.”
YSL is currently the only South African unified communications provider to seamlessly integrate converged communication components into Microsoft Outlook 2007 and Microsoft Exchange 2007 - making it by far the most appealing solution to the increasing number of gated communities in South Africa.
“We find that a lot of gated communities cannot get these traditional services as the developers do not always put in infrastructure for them. Even when they do, Telkom will not offer services to an estate as it is not financially viable for them to do so. There is also the common problem of applicants waiting for months for services from traditional providers.
“Our offering is a converged service, based on a local network within the estate, and we can thus provide a lot more functionality on one infrastructure.”
The solution
The YSL Group began exploring communications services in November 2007 and delivered its first converged communications service - Y-Suite - in February 2008.
Y-Suite is an innovative solution that offers complete hosted communications services as well as raw connectivity on a Microsoft platform. YSL has specialised in Microsoft products since 1992 and therefore has a wide knowledge and understanding of them. “We know that Microsoft produces building blocks,” says Yssel. “Using our experience and skills, we were able to use the right blocks, and develop the glue as well as missing components to deliver this complete service.”
The company's Y-Suite solution is based on Microsoft Hosted Exchange and Active Directory. Furthermore, as an Exchange-based solution, all data is protected in an SQL Server database and can be accessed remotely.
Y-Suite can be seen as a one-stop offering for every kind of Internet-based service. “From a single Ethernet port into the home, the user has access to a full communications suite that includes e-mail, fax, telephony, SMS and Internet access,” says Yssel. “It is a single piece of network that delivers every conceivable Internet-based service, removing the need for unsightly wires which are messy and annoying. The Microsoft platform was an obvious choice for Y-Suite because of the Active Directory and the Hosted suite of tools.”
The most crucial requirement, however, was for unified communications. “Hosted Exchange allows for all the functions in terms of telephony integration (voicemail to a mailbox); fax integration (receiving faxes via a mailbox); SMS client integration (short messages to cellphones directly from a mailbox); and OCS (the ability to make and receive phone calls from a mailbox),” explains Yssel. “The PBXnSIP platform allows for PBX integration and voice gateway.”
YSL briefly considered using open source software but found that the level of requirement from users is too sophisticated and there is insufficient product support. “We would rather work with Microsoft, safe in the knowledge that there is adequate product support,” says Yssel. “If we used open source building blocks, the development required to provide the functionality we were looking for would have taken far too long and would have been far too expensive. It wouldn't have made sense to develop something new when it is already available on the Microsoft platform.”
The Microsoft products fulfilled YSL's requirements for manageability, reliability, security, scalability, and performance, but above all, functionality. “In our business, end-user value-added services are essential.”
The results
Residents in gated communities are fully equipped with a low-cost, unified communications solution from the minute they move into the area. The superior, reliable service that is the result of working off a Microsoft platform has ensured that YSL is able to meet and exceed client expectations.
“The main issue for us was to provide superior functionality at the highest levels of reliability,” says Yssel. “This was achieved from inception. We reduced support calls to approximately three calls per day, from an initial 16 to 20.”
Technology used
Microsoft Hosted Exchange 2007
Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007
Microsoft Office Standard and Enterprise Editions 2007
Microsoft SQL Server 2005
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2
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