Cisco Does VOIP for Polish Border Guard

WARSAW -- The Polish Border Guard announced today that it is deploying a Cisco based IP telephony network to improve communications and productivity along Poland's 3,449 km-long state border, which is made up of 12 regional divisions with approximately 300 border passes, checkpoints and posts.

The integrated voice, data and long-range Ethernet network will be one of the largest IP telephony deployments in Europe with in excess of 6,500 Cisco IP phones and is also Poland's largest public sector outsourcing project.

Cezary Zalewski, general manager of the Polish Border Guard's Telecommunication and IT Department, said: "The national incumbent operator, Telekomunikacja Polska SA, invested in building the entire infrastructure for us and is maintaining it. This has allowed the Polish Border Guard to deal with state budget restrictions and migrate from an administration-intensive, low-end legacy analogue telecommunication system to a future-proof IT platform including IP telephony as well as Intranet and Internet access. This project is a crucial development as the country prepares to enter the European Union, after which it will have responsibility for EU immigration along its eastern border."

Grzegorz Wojtkun, head of the Telecommunications Section in the Polish Border Guard's Telecommunication and IT Department, said: "Today there are no reasons to invest in traditional private branch exchange technology. Cisco's IP telephony, with additional services, such as text message broadcasting, will allow us to save on systems administration and training, allowing more headcount to protect the future EU's longest stretch of land boundary. Cisco offered state-of-the-art and most future-proof telephony solution available on the market."

NextiraOne prepared the Cisco IP telephony platform based on Telekomunikacja Polska SA's multiservice communications network, incorporating Frame Relay, ISDN amongst other technologies. Polish Border Guard's IP Telephony network will comprise of over 6,500 Cisco IP phones, Cisco CallManager IP PBXs, Cisco IP Interactive Voice Response systems and other technologies such as PIX Firewalls and Cisco VPN 3015 Concentrators. Routing is via Cisco 3600 and 3700 Series Multiservice Platforms with Survivable Remote Site Telephony. The future EU border checkpoints will each be equipped with long-range Ethernet connections featuring Catalyst 2950 Switches with Cisco 575 LRE Customer Premise Equipment devices.

Michael Ansley, Director of Advanced Technologies, Cisco Systems EMEA, said: "This is a great example of both innovation in technology and innovation in addressing a specific business challenge. By using an outsourcing agreement with the national incumbent to acquire new, more efficient technology to improve employee productivity, the Polish Boarder Guard has no capital expenditure and no increase in operational costs. The Polish Border Guard clearly understands the benefits of acquiring an integrated platform and is now in a strong position to assume its role as gatekeeper to the EU with a technology platform that will be able to support increasingly complex voice, data and media applications for the foreseeable future."

Cisco Systems Inc.