Press release
Yorkshire Water switches to Telewest Business and saves over
£100K a year
July 26 2004. Telewest Business, the supplier of broadband
communications to the public and private sector markets, has been
chosen by Yorkshire Water to manage more than 3000 analogue
telephone lines using Telewest Business’ Wholesale Line Rental
(WLR) and Carrier Pre-Select (CPS) services.
Yorkshire Water had 3,000 analogue lines that were rented from
BT. As part of an ongoing review of cost savings, Telewest
estimated that Yorkshire Water would save more than £100k per annum
if they rented these lines using its WLR service rather than from
BT and also routed their calls over the Telewest network using
CPS.
Commenting on the contract, Kevin Johnson, telecommunications
manager, Yorkshire Water: “The pricing structure is very
competitive. Switching over line rental and voice tariffs from BT
to Telewest Business for our 3,000 lines will result in significant
savings. Telewest have been a major supplier to Yorkshire Water for
many years. Our experience of their services provided the
confidence that the implementation would be trouble free. Compared
to most decisions of this magnitude, this one fell into the easy
category”
Julien St. John-Dennis, director of voice at Telewest Business
said: “Results from a survey conducted on our behalf by Vanson
Bourne, found that CPS is widely misunderstood in today’s business
environment but the cost reduction businesses can benefit from are
huge. By utilising existing BT lines, coupled together with line
rental savings we are able to offer a much more competitive
price.”
The survey polled 104 telecom managers in the UK on their
current voice services. The findings showed that nearly a third of
UK businesses are unhappy with their voice services but over half
of those polled did not know about CPS services. Furthermore, the
main reason for not moving to a different provider was the cost and
disruption caused, although in most cases costs would be reduced
and disruption would be minimal.
Out of those polled, over a third thought that current CPS
services were only available on a regional basis but Telewest
Business can provide their CPS service nationally.
Yorkshire Water provides 1.7m households and 140,000 businesses
with water and sewerage services. They manage the collection,
treatment and distribution of water, supplying around 1.24 billion
litres of drinking water each day.