CTI Group, the international provider of electronic invoice management, VoIP and mobile telephony applications, today announced that the Avon and Somerset Constabulary has installed its Proteus Enterprise call accounting solution across the police force’s entire communications network. Proteus Enterprise is being utilised by the constabulary to accurately measure the level of call traffic to ensure appropriate resourcing of staff levels, to monitor and highlight unusual activity for fraud prevention and for maintaining compliance with its regulatory and auditory requirements.

The Client

 It is one of the largest forces in England and Wales, responsible for policing a population of almost 1.5 million people covering 1,855 square miles that takes in virtually every kind of landscape including city centres, wild moors, dense forests, holiday resorts and vast commercial and industrial complexes. The Constabulary handles around one million phone calls per year to its published numbers, not including 999 emergency calls.

 The Challenge

As a police constabulary, Avon and Somerset required a call accounting system that would help meets its legal requirements, such as providing the Home Office with call handling statistics and information. Included within these statistics is data that reports on how well the constabulary performs against its service level agreements on responding to 999 calls.

In addition to meeting its legal and regulatory requirements, the force needed a call management solution that would satisfy a further two requirements. The first issue was to highlight any fraudulent activity that was occurring on the constabulary’s network and, if it was, that it was reported immediately. Telecoms fraud is a serious consideration for organisations of any size or form. In 2008 alone, it is estimated that telephony fraud cost UK businesses around £1.3bn. Without a robust call management system, it is not until an organisation receives its monthly bill that the fraudulent activity would be highlighted.

The second issue that the Constabulary required was to identify any ‘potential bottlenecks’ on the network. The force made the decision to reduce the number of published inbound numbers from six to a single call profile and, as with any significant change such as this, they needed to monitor it on an ongoing basis to highlight any problems that may arise. By routing all inbound calls through one number, the Constabulary’s contact centre could also potentially receive a higher volume and different types of calls. As a result, it was vital that the call accounting solution generated regular call traffic reports that would allow the police to manage staffing resource levels to ensure the public’s perception of how the police were responding to calls remained positive.

The Solution

Following a competitive tender process, Avon and Somerset Constabulary specified the Proteus Enterprise call accounting solution from CTI Group. Proteus Enterprise is a premise-based solution designed to be scalable for organisations from large SMEs to global multinationals that offers managers the opportunity to gain optimum efficiency and cost effectiveness from their telecoms network. By monitoring calls in real time and with a built in alarms feature, Proteus is able to highlight any unusual network activity and fraud when it occurs. Additionally, Proteus helps organisations ensure appropriate levels of employee resourcing by producing detailed analytic reports that measure and reflect periods of high and low call traffic.

 To meet the Constabulary’s business requirements to identify fraud or misuse of its communications system, Proteus’ built in alarms feature provided a tangible benefit. The force set up reports that would alert specified management personnel when exceptional or unusual activities occurred, such as events not downloaded from one of its exchanges and international calls lasting more than 15 minutes.

Steve Pemberton, Telephony Service Manager for Avon and Somerset Constabulary, commented, "It was more than just features, it was the overall functionality of the Proteus solution, especially the alarms feature, that won the day and now provides us with real time call logging over the entire network."

Additionally, the advanced functionality of Proteus, as well as being independent from any single carrier, provided the force with a number of cost saving features while helping to meet their auditory requirements. This included setting up reports that allowed dedicated communications managers to compare carrier bills with the actual charges recorded by Proteus. This helped ensure carrier costs were valid while also giving the Constabulary confidence when providing the Home Office with regular audit reports.

Further cost savings were achieved through the use of Proteus’ call traffic measurement tools. Through the identification of point-to-point circuits that were either rarely or no longer in use, the force was able to dispose of unused lines while better utilising lines that were under-used.

The Benefits

CTI Group’s Proteus Enterprise has provided the Avon and Somerset Constabulary with a call accounting solution that has allowed it to meet its legal and regulatory requirements while also successfully implementing the required number change without any problems. Pemberton recognised that without the Proteus Enterprise system this would not have been possible. "Without the Proteus logger, quite frankly, I would be blind," he said.

The constabulary has also seen three additional significant value-add benefits following the application’s installation. The first two come as a result of Proteus working in an IP network environment. This allows the system to provide instant ‘real-time’ call reports. For example, when a call is completed on the network’s Yeovil exchange, its details are immediately available for review in the force’s Bristol HQ. The second benefit is a result of the constabulary deploying IP buffers over 33 remote sites which means that if the telephony network were to fail, the call records would not be lost.

Finally, prior to deploying Proteus Enterprise, individual visits to each site were required to check the network server. By being fully network enabled, Proteus allows reports to be run from any laptop or PC regardless of location. This feature helped lead to immediate cost and time savings for the police force by eliminating the need for these visits.

The Proteus Enterprise solution will also have further business benefits such as the provision of call monitoring reports which will allow the force’s various departments to accurately recharge individual employees the cost of making personal phone calls on their mobile phones.