By Network world Asia Staff
Korea's largest auto complex, Seoul Auto Gallery (SAG) wants to veer away from traditional, old-fashioned used-car dealership service. Aiming to be the premier high-end auto complex in the country, the company decided it would need advanced communications infrastructure to stay ahead of the curve.
The company is quite clear on what it wanted: front line efficiency by providing dealers access to real-time information regarding the features and prices of cars anywhere in the showroom. "We needed advanced communication system to help us become a leading auto complex. We searched for a solution that would enable efficient communication between dealers on the showroom floor and, at the same time, reduce telecommunications costs," said Jin-gon Lee, IT Manager of SAG.
Lee knew that the ability to provide user mobility in a wireless environment while integrating voice and data communications on the IP network could only be achieved by deploying wireless IP telephony. The infrastructure should enable seamless roaming features and reliability in voice transmission across 2,000 mobile devices over the IP network.
However, SAG was unsure how to effectively approach an IP telephony project because the technology was fairly new to Korea. As a result, there were no in-country case studies for wireless IP telephony implementation.
SAG moved forward with evaluations and testing of the available IP telephony solutions provided by many IP telephony solution vendors both within and outside Korea. Through these tests, the company hopes to identify the IP telephony solution that could provide interoperability with its existing Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). SAG also wanted a solution that would ensure good voice quality over the IP network and achieve seamless connectivity between the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and the data network.
Following the results of the one-month evaluation process the company gave highest mark to Avaya IP Telephony solution as it demonstrating the best performance in various categories including IP Softphone application features over PDA and voice quality over an IP network.