Communications Delivery and Receipt Infrastructure

Telecommunications Infrastructure
Merit is keenly aware that the most important single piece of infrastructure on which the delivery of its services is resting, is the Telecommunications links established. For this reason, we have implemented the strongest combination of carrier selection and telephony equipment and redundancy to safeguard the assured and clear delivery of voice communication.

We have a dedicated fibre IPLC line with 512K capacity supplied by C&W and the Indian telecoms giant VSNL. This line running from Chennai to Mumbai to Europe on the SEMEWE3 international cable currently carries 35 lines and is upgradeable to 2mb giving 150 lines.

We have also implemented a secondary backup line (VoIP) with VSNL with a capacity rate of 512K, and with this line in place and operational, it gives a solid level of contingency.

These international lines run on a completely separate architecture (and equipment set) to that used for normal Indian public telecoms traffic. The public network in turn provides a further level of contingency in the event that our IPLC and VoIP connections fail. In this scenario we can divert UK calls across the normal telephone network and while the cost of this solution would be prohibitive normally (at full international rates), we can absorb such a cost to bridge short term down times. As a third option its usage would be extremely rare.

Telecommunications Equipment
On the IPLC architecture we use a PBX (GSI) delivered and maintained by Ericsson, one of the leading equipment producers in the world. Ericsson have also supplied a sophisticated software system to handle the call traffic (encompassing ACD and eCRM capability) and to gather and report on call statistics from each agent handset.

The passport multiplexor (which transfers the calls between the PBX and the IPLC) is supplied by Nortel and we have service contracts over the entire equipment which guarantees on site support within four hours at the outset (the normal response rate it 60 – 90 minutes).

For our domestic Indian call traffic (which serves as a telecoms contingency option) we have a PBX system supplied by Siemens with call distribution handled by proprietary Siemens software.
The handsets used by our agents are Nortel and all are equipped with Plantronics headsets and volume control adaptors. As mentioned above all handsets are connected to a software system which handles and controls call distribution and statistical analysis.

Web Access
Merit has a 512K leased line arrangement with Bharti Plc, whom were one of the largest suppliers of broadband internet access in India.

The company has a separate backup line leased through Primus Telecom whom offer satellite based internet connectivity.

The company’s internet access is handled on a dedicated IBM server with checkpoint firewall protection to regulate access to our systems both internally and externally. The company has also implemented a clear set of regulations governing internet use amongst the employees.

Email
Email access to Merit is handled on MS Exchange Server 2000 using the leased line web access detailed above to handle email transmission and receipt with primary and secondary suppliers in place to ensure continuity.

Fax
We have three levels of fax handling: We can receive faxes through a dedicated channel on the IPLC infrastructure with further fax capability on the public PSTN network. We also use a fax to email service for UK fax traffic and this is supplied by the UK company eFax ltd.