Aircraft manufacturers Airbus has migrated from a traditional private branch exchange (PBX) system to a fully IP-based telephony system, deploying 40,000 IP-based phones in the UK and France.
30,000 extension in France and 10,000 in the UK were deployed with the company using Cisco's Unified Communications Manager call-processing software to cover all sites.
The contract to implement and manage Airbus' IP Communication over a five-year period was signed in 2005 by communications service operator and integrator Orange Business Services. The financial terms of the deal were undisclosed.
The project took Orange Business Services nine months to install the central architecture following configuration and planning of the system. Up to 600 phones were deployed on a daily basis by Orange Business Services.
Robert Louge, head of IT Projects at Airbus said that the new system has helped the company "improve communications, reduce our spending by simplifying our communications infrastructure and allowed us to make a quick and simple transition to an IP-based Unified Communications platform."
Chris Dedicoat, president of European Markets at Cisco said that the new IP-based communications platform will help Airbus "increase the productivity of its employees."
