Pratt Industries, the fifth largest box manufacturer in the U.S. and the world’s largest privately held 100 percent recycled paper and packaging company, has chosen Windstream, a provider of advanced network communications, to provide customized managed unified communications services. Pratt will now rely on Windstream to connect and centralize communications among their 72 locations nationwide.

Prior to partnering with Windstream, each of Pratt’s facilities was using outdated PBX phone systems that required a great deal of maintenance and repairs, resulting in a significant amount of downtime, costing the company money due to lost productivity. Phone (News - Alert) and fax service is essential to Pratt’s day-to-day business operations because of the ongoing communication between locations and with Pratt’s customers.

"In looking for a new communications provider, we wanted a trusted company with proven technology and service that would be able to provide a fully managed solution," said Juan Merelo, technical services manager, Pratt. "We didn't want to have a dedicated phone specialist on staff, and didn't want to have to try to coordinate with multiple vendors. Windstream provides all of the services and support that we need--it's a one-shop deal."

Windstream is providing a customized, totally managed Unified Communications (News - Alert) service that was designed and developed especially for Pratt. The system is built upon the Mitel 3300 IP Communications Platform (ICP)--which is housed in one of Windstream's enterprise-class data centers--and utilizes Windstream's Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) network to connect Pratt's geographically and functionally diverse locations.

The Mitel (News - Alert) 3300 ICP is a highly scalable communications system that provides enterprise IP PBX capability plus a range of embedded applications including standard unified messaging, auto-attendant, ACD, and wireless gateway. It supports over 500 telephony features and a powerful suite of applications including multimedia collaboration, customer relationship management, and unified messaging.

"From the beginning, Windstream has been completely dedicated to Pratt and has treated us as if we are their number one customer," said Merelo. "With other companies, there can be a lot of turnover with the representatives you're working with, or you talk to someone different every time you call. With Windstream, we have had the same team see us through the entire process of conversion."

Employees at Pratt have noticed enhanced call clarity, have benefited from the additional features available with VoIP, and the company’s downtime has been reduced to nearly zero.

Airespring, an IP communications provider, also offers an MPLS product: the MPLS Mesh network, a multi-location enterprise product that makes it affordable and easy to mesh together the networks of all remote office locations. The MPLS Mesh network is touted as the ultimate product for organizations requiring secure T-1 and higher speed data networks with private network security as customers no longer have to find a carrier who can cover all of the remote offices.

Some of the key features of the MPLS Mesh network include: lowest rates across multiple carrier networks; voice over MPLS (VoMPLS) available; single bill and single point of contact; custom solutions to deliver the architecture that you need and the ability to combine networks from multiple carriers, among other things.

“With a typical MPLS configuration, a company would pick a single carrier and then they would just pay whatever that carrier charges for each location but with AireSpring’s (News - Alert) MPLS Mesh you can pick a different carrier for each one of your remote locations and we mesh those together,” Regan said. “You can pick the lowest cost carrier for every one of your offices and then we securely mesh it all together into a single MPLS network with a single SLA, a single bill. It’s a huge advantage; it makes MPLS easy and affordable and it’s fully managed by AiresSpring.”

To find out more about AireSpring visit the company at ITEXPO West 2012, taking place Oct. 2-5, in Austin, TX. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. Visit AireSpring in booth #719. For more information on registering for ITEXPO click here.

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