Weisse Arena Gruppe - Centralisation of the telephony solution

The Weisse Arena Group, which operates the ski lifts and winter sports resort in Laax, also runs various hotels and restaurants. It provides a centralised ICT infrastructure for these business. In both the winter and the summer season, the ICT infrastructure must be fully operational around the clock and be ready for a big surge in demand. To achieve this, Bouygues Energies & Services used a greenfield approach to implement a solution based on a managed communication service (MCS).

As part of an optimisation project, the Weisse Arena Gruppe invited tenders for a telecommunications solution that is highly available and easy to maintain and whose investment and maintenance costs are around two thirds lower. Bouygues Energies & Services was tasked with developing a proposal for a solution that would enable these challenging goals to be achieved. The analysis of the current situation, in particular the meticulous review of the current amortisation and maintenance costs, revealed the following:

• The amortisation costs were twice as high as the targeted costs for the overall solution
• Maintenance costs too high
• Networking of several telephone systems of different ages
• Insufficient availability of the overall system

It became clear that these goals could only be achieved with a green field approach using state-of-the-art Voice over IP technology. Bouygues Energies & Services subsequently developed a proposed solution based on a Managed Communication Service (MCS) and presented it to the management of the Weisse Arena Gruppe. Availability, expandability, state-of-the-art technology, call centre requirements and calculable costs were the main drivers for the evaluation of the new telephony solution. The tourism industry is increasingly under cost pressure. It therefore soon became clear that such a project can only be implemented if the transition phase does not cause higher costs in the first few years. Therefore, the managed service was designed in such a way that the total annual costs would remain the same for the first two years and then steadily reduce to the target level from the third year onwards. This managed service model enabled the Weisse Arena Gruppe to migrate to a modern communications platform without having to write off the existing platform more quickly.

To significantly reduce maintenance costs, a centralised, redundant call server with a redundant connection to the public telephone network was implemented. The centralised architecture includes all critical components of this communication platform. In this way, they could be installed in the data centre and the infrastructural requirements for a highly available operation could be fulfilled. On the inaccessible mountain stations, only low-complexity components such as IP telephones, gateways for DECT and digital telephones had to be installed. Thanks to the IP technology, the redundancies in the IP network of the Weisse Arena Gruppe could be utilised and the availability in the mountain stations increased.

The green field approach of Bouygues Energies & Services convinced our client from the very beginning. “The implementation with professional system engineers, supported by regional technicians, went without any major interruptions to operations,” explained Marc Schulz, Head of ICT at the Weisse Arena Gruppe. After the expiry of the managed communication service, the communication solution became the property of the Weisse Arena Gruppe. The Weisse Arena Gruppe continues to rely on the expert and professional maintenance and support provided by Bouygues Energies & Services.