What, us? Well, not exactly.

We’ve always fought shy of actually installing equipment, rather than carefully taking it out.

However, we’ve had a close relationship with an experienced Nortel BT Meridian Option engineering specialist company virtually from our first days of trading, over nine years ago. And when we were approached some time back to install a used Nortel Meridian Option 11 as a “back-up/disaster recovery” system, we realised that we had the hardware, basic engineering, cabling, customer liason, and project management skills gained through taking things out, that could easily be converted to put things in. All we needed was someone from our friendly Option 11 engineering company to do the deep and mysterious programming bits. Voila! A team to put something in and make it work. Which we did. To the customer’s (and BT’s) satisfaction.

BT? Yes. Although we can install, modify, configure, and programme Option 11 systems, we have no desire to be a maintainer, the on-call “AA/RAC” of the telecomms world, with people standing by to fix faults to tight time scales. Irresponsible? Not really, just that age and wisdom have taught us what we are good at, and what we shouldn’t take on. And servicing 24/7 maintenance contracts is not what our business is set up to do, although we know companies that do it, and do it well. So, our customer wanted BT to maintain the system we put in. They had to check it over as part of a Maintenance Acceptance Test. Which it passed, with compliments from the inspector.

So, for the customer, this installation, and his subsequent ones, turned into perfect “win-win” situations; we installed used Option 11 equipment at a fraction of the new cost. He then got BT to maintain, ensuring the continuity of service of the system. This is akin to an independent Mercedes dealer supplying a used, depreciated, well-maintained model, then covering it with a comprehensive factory warranty. In short, an utter bargain, with no shortcomings.

We quite like “beating the system” on behalf of customers. We came in at around one quarter of the equivalent price from “the official suppliers”.

So, if we can do the same for your organisation, be that on a Nortel Meridian Option 11, 61, or 81,please let us know. We’re beginning to enjoy putting things in for a change…

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Telecoms Recycling, BT Meridian Option 11. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.