Offshore Drillers Keep In Touch With VoIP
Mitel has landed a contract to supply an IPTelephony platform to five rigs and associated satellite offices for StenaDrilling, one of the world’s leading drilling contractors.
The core platform is already in place at thecompany’s Aberdeenheadquarters as the first stage in a planned global roll-out. The sites, in Asia,Australia, Africaand elsewhere will be installed and supported by a company called Nessco, aMitel Platinum Solution provider.
In the next six months Mitel IP wirelessphones will be rolled out to Stena Drilling’s five fully submersible rigs andits new mobile rig - Drill Max.
The Mitel 3300 IP Communications Platform(ICP) with IP-DECT handsets will deliver wireless communication to the oil rigsas part of a drive by the drilling company to improve business processes andbring its telecommunications in-house to replace a managed service.
Sharon McLaughlin, IT manager at StenaDrilling, said: “We struggled for months with our old PBX system, which lackedthe level of flexibility we required. Our drilling rigs frequently move and weneed a system that allows us to adapt our telephony systems quickly and easily.
“Previously we were constrained by ourtraditional system and often found ourselves waiting days for an engineer tore-programme headsets and telephone ports, which was neither cost-effective ortime efficient.
“We had also become frustrated that our oldsystem didn’t support the video conferencing equipment we had invested in. We now have the flexibility to make moves,adds and changes ourselves and can integrate new applications quickly and easily,”she said.
The company is hoping for “a considerablereduction in cost and time spent on external engineers” as a result of the newsolution.
It’s got more ambitious plans for thefuture though and expects to implement mobile support at the rigs so thatsenior managers - who frequently travel between sites and work from home - to be able to use the IP communications platformseamlessly.