The Customer
LifeCare Ambulance provides emergency 911 dispatch services to residents of Lorain County, Ohio. It offers 911 EMS services, outpatient care, and wheelchair transportation for Medicare and Medicaid patients to and from their medical appointments.
LifeCare Ambulance provides emergency 911 dispatch services to residents of Lorain County, Ohio. It offers 911 EMS services, outpatient care, and wheelchair transportation for Medicare and Medicaid patients to and from their medical appointments.
Business Challenges
LifeCare’s legacy phone system, a Nortel BCM 450, was failing rapidly. Since Nortel ceased operations a few years after LifeCare purchased the system, the company had to make do with temporary repairs, as it was impossible to find a technician or spare parts to maintain it. Eventually, after receiving approval to explore options for a new business communications system, Richard Pozywak, LifeCare’s IT director, already thought he knew what he wanted and wasted no time starting the phone system upgrade process. When he received the first quote for a new Cisco system, Pozywak quickly saw the value of broadening the selection process to include other telecom vendors.
“I wanted a Cisco phone system,” says Pozywak. “I was stubborn at first and wouldn’t consider anything else, until we spoke with our Cisco vendor and got the price for a new Cisco system. Holy cow! We were looking at $300,000 to $400,000 for a Cisco system.” Knowing the owners would not be willing to spend that much, Pozywak abandoned the Cisco proposal and began looking for other options. He also considered another major brand, but again encountered the same problem of costly extra charges for standard features and licenses.
By the time it had purchased all the add-ons LifeCare needed for its communication requirements, the company would have had to spend at least $100,000 out of pocket. It was back to square one. Pozywak explains that they considered a cloud solution and spoke with several agencies comparable to LifeCare that use these systems, but none of them handles emergency calls. Instead, most focus primarily on arranging transportation for their clients. This led Pozywak and his team to eliminate that option. The LifeCare team was somewhat familiar with an open-source telephony development kit called Asterisk, sponsored and maintained by Sangoma.
As they considered using internal resources to build an Asterisk solution from scratch, they began comparing it with the Switchvox phone system. With Switchvox, there were no add-ons, and all features were included and integrated into the web interface. The Switchvox solution seemed more than promising. Pozywak was quickly introduced to Tim May, whose company N2Net in Cleveland is one of the region’s leading Switchvox providers and one of the Midwest’s top VoIP specialists.
Solutions From Sangoma
LifeCare purchased a Switchvox appliance along with nearly 50 high-definition IP phones, 90 Gold support subscriptions, and analog cards that connect the Switchvox software to analog phone lines, phones, and legacy phone systems—all for about $50,000, a fraction of the competition’s price. Eliminating the hassles of a legacy phone system and moving to a more reliable communications solution were critical goals for LifeCare’s communications upgrade. But there were other needs and unexpected benefits once Switchvox was deployed.
LifeCare purchased a Switchvox appliance along with nearly 50 high-definition IP phones, 90 Gold support subscriptions, and analog cards that connect the Switchvox software to analog phone lines, phones, and legacy phone systems—all for about $50,000, a fraction of the competition’s price. Eliminating the hassles of a legacy phone system and moving to a more reliable communications solution were critical goals for LifeCare’s communications upgrade. But there were other needs and unexpected benefits once Switchvox was deployed.
“By law, we have to record every call that comes into our 911 call center, log it properly, and transfer it off-site for storage for 7 years,” explains Pozywak. “It was always a very complicated process with the Nortel system, involving several steps where we had to connect the wiring in open locations, then link it with a connector… it was a mess. With Switchvox, recording is built into the system, so all of that has gone away.” Pozywak says it cost about $3,000 to upgrade their data center’s central 6500 switch from 110 volts to 240 volts, essentially by replacing the line-based chassis so it could handle the power required for recording, logging, and transferring the data. The upgrade also significantly improved call quality. “The system is entirely web-based, so I can be at home or anywhere in the world, and all I have to do is go to my computer and open our Switchvox web page to see what’s happening,” says Pozywak.
The Results
Regarding Switchvox’s special features, Pozywak says they integrated Google Maps into the Switchvox dashboard so that when a call comes in, they know where it is coming from. With GPS built into mobile phones, the location is relayed to LifeCare within minutes. The dispatch service often uses Switchvox softphones, while office staff use high-end IP phones. In the paramedics’ garage, they also use advanced IP phones, which have proven robust enough to withstand repeated use.
Regarding Switchvox’s special features, Pozywak says they integrated Google Maps into the Switchvox dashboard so that when a call comes in, they know where it is coming from. With GPS built into mobile phones, the location is relayed to LifeCare within minutes. The dispatch service often uses Switchvox softphones, while office staff use high-end IP phones. In the paramedics’ garage, they also use advanced IP phones, which have proven robust enough to withstand repeated use.
Many LifeCare supervisors use the Switchvox mobile app because they are often away from their offices. Competing VoIP phone systems with the flexibility and expandability of Switchvox would have cost LifeCare up to six times what they paid for the Sangoma solution. In addition, with N2Net providing their SIP trunk service, the company’s monthly long-distance charges are significantly reduced. “We were paying $2,500 per month for our phone service, including long-distance calls,” says Pozywak. “Our new bill is $534, reducing our phone bill by $1,800 to $2,000 per month. Savings of $24,000 per year are an added bonus!” In just over two years, the savings LifeCare enjoys will fully cover the phone system itself.