VoIP goes down to the woods

If a tree falls in the woods, soon the Forestry Commission will be able to make sure people know about it after it upgrades its voice network to VoIP.

By using services such as wide area networking, broadband and satellite communications, the conservation organisation will give its 3,500 employees access to a voice network to keep in touch.

"VoIP allows us to look across the estate and have one single managed communications infrastructure," said Chris Smith, communications contract commercial manager at the Forestry Commission.

The government department signed a £14 million contract with Globall Crossing to implement a unified communications service linking all 94 Forestry Commission sites across the UK which also will allow employees to engage in audio and video conferencing across the web.

The commission hopes to create a single infrastructure for all its communications by rolling out the Global Crossing VoIP service to all sites by the end of 2007.