Northgate Academy Upgrades to Sangoma Cloud UC and Cuts Costs by 20% with ISDN Switch-Off

Northgate School Academy Trust is a multi-site, 600-pupil secondary school for students with special needs, located in Northampton, UK.

Its legacy, 80 or so feature-poor telephone handsets were outdated and out-of-service, and connected to just a handful of BT ISDN lines via a single, ageing, on-premise PBX that somehow managed to keep the phones ringing.

Phones were hard-wired in fixed locations on desks and in offices, affording users zero mobility. Head teachers and senior managers in particular – whose roles involved frequent movements around the academy’s sites throughout the day – were often rendered ‘unavailable’ and instead were left messages to return calls once they were back at their desks.

The Academy knew its primary phone users were keen to deliver a hugely-improved experience to parents, partners and others who called in needing to talk. And it knew it wanted to provide staff with an easy, light-touch ability to call out or connect internally with colleagues. Finally, they were keen to deliver on strategies to reduce costs wherever possible.

With the UK ISDN switch-off fast approaching, the Academy’s long-time technology provider—accredited Sangoma Integrator Partner Education Technologies—explained that digital modernisation offered a timely, cost-effective way of transforming and future-proofing the Academy’s communication capabilities.

VEGA VoIP Gateway SIP trunks were deployed which converted the analogue phone signal and allowed connection to a VoIP network. Then, Sangoma’s powerful, all-in-one Switchvox Cloud communications platform replaced outdated and clunky PSTN voice calling with a slick and ultra-reliable suite of cloud-powered functionalities that transformed the user experience and instantly reduced telephony costs by around 20%.

Replicating all of the academy’s communication functionality on any connected device, anytime and anywhere via a single application, it instantly provided rich and powerful unified communication features such as voice calling, video, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), call redirect during school holidays, and full call management and analytics.

The schools’ staff all received comprehensive and easy-to-understand training on how to use the new system, its live switchboard features, and its call reporting functionality.

However, it is the as-standard Switchvox Cloud mobile app that is really driving positive transformation. When non-teaching, management, technical or administrative support staff were once unavailable due to being away from their desk, they now have the entire system and its feature-rich functionality replicated on their mobile device. Also, for those with appropriate roles, that same mobility and flexibility enables them to work from home.

The Academy’s Executive Head Sheralee Webb says:

“We were unaware of the impending switch-off of the traditional UK telephony network but fortunately we have an extremely good working relationship with our trusted IT Managed Service Partner Education Technologies which flagged to us a year ago that we would need to transform.

“Probably like most organisations focused fully on their own day-to-day priorities, having the time or inclination to consider the implications of a fundamental change to our phone system was a challenge. The consultative nature of our relationship was key. They talked us through the technicalities of the switch-off and the benefits on offer of moving to the cloud. Our existing system was ageing and out of service, and we were persuaded that now was the time to fully digitise.

“The reduced costs, the simplicity and reliability, the enhanced functionality and agility – the benefits are everywhere. Our new Sangoma handsets are modern and robust, and the Sangoma Switchvox solution unifies all of our internal and external communication channels in a way which enables us to navigate the switch-off, improve user experience, and future-proof our organisation.”