Giving new meaning to itemised billing   Date: 09 May 2005 Issue: 9 May (Computing S.A.) Category: SA News Sean Bacher     UNISON COMMUNICATIONS, a company specialising in telephony implementations and voice applications, was appointed by the Innovation Hub at the beginning of this year to implement Galactrix, an advanced live telephony billing system. At the end of March, the Innovation Hub made its first live billing. “If you had to ask a company what its biggest expenditures are, relatively close to the top of the list would be communications,” says Craig Young, MD of Unison. “Companies need to control their telephony expenditures, but do not have the resources nor the manpower to sift through mounds and mounds of paperwork at the end of each month.” According to Young, what many companies do not realise is that their telephony system can save them money - if managed correctly. “Galactrix enables a company to properly manage its telephony system, and will enable companies to monitor telephony usage right down to an extension or even a user,” he claims. According to Unison, the solution does not require the company to upgrade its current telephony infrastructure in order to run the Galactrix solution. “Galactrix will be able to run over a heterogeneous environment, and the PABXs and handsets do not need to be top of the range,” says Young. “So when a distributed organisation such as the Innovation Hub requires a detailed voice billing solution for all its tenants, each one running a different telephony infrastructure, it only makes sense to implement something like Galactrix,” he comments. According to Dr Nevil Comins, CEO of the Innovation Hub management company, Galactrix offers the Innovation Hub exactly what it needs. “The Innovation Hub is a multi-client premises, each client runs its own telephony system, and we needed a single billing solution that would work across the board, Galactrix provided us with just that.” Comins goes on to say that the Galactrix billing solution is not only beneficial to the Hub, but also to its tenants. “The Hub and its tenants are exceptionally happy with the billing solution. The Innovation Hub is now able to provide accurate and detailed bills to its tenants, and the tenants can now monitor their telephony usage all the way down to the user level,” he says. Galactrix runs in an SQL environment, and all the applications are developed locally. Young continues to say that the Galactrix billing system is also geared for VoIP billing. Comins concludes that there were numerous other vendors offering similar solutions, but the main reason the Hub decided to use the Galactrix solution was because it was the most flexible and accommodating.   [ Print Now ] [ Close Window ]