FVC, a leading Value Added Distributor in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA), has completed the first phase of a video conferencing project in SOLB Steel in Saudi Arabia. The project now connects the company’s offices in Riyadh, Jeddah and Jazan over bandwidths as low as 512Kb.
The first phase of this project added Polycom IP telephony in Riyadh office successfully linking into Solb Steel’s existing Lync 2010 system. The second phase, planned later this year for the factory in Jazan region will cover the deployment of Polycom IP Telephony for its plant offices and buildings.
Dr. Faisal Al Nasser, the IT Department Manager for SOLB Steel, said, “What we realized during our extensive tests was that Polycom offered the best video conferencing solution to what we were looking for. The solutions offered to us by Polycom’s distributor, FVC, and its local KSA implementation partner, Anmat Tech, could fully integrate with the technology we were already using into the new solution. Polycom’s ability to work with limited bandwidth is impressive in terms of video and audio quality.”
SOLB Steel’s IT team conducted several tests and selected Polycom HDX 6000 and HDX 7000 that deliver flexible, cost-effective, high-definition communications over low bandwidths using standards-based technology. The new HDX video conferencing systems were linked to several IP phones.
In addition, the company installed, in the first phase, 45 CX 600, 6 CX 700, 6 VVX 1500 and 6 Spectra Link 8400 wireless handsets that were linked to two Polycom CX3000 IP conference phones that comes with native Lync integration, configured to work with MS Exchange 2010 and Microsoft Lync 2010.
“This project is a unique demonstration of the capabilities of our Polycom unified communications solutions,” pointed out Yakob Kafina, General Manager for FVC’s Saudi Arabian operations. “Being standard-based, we can ensure that an enterprise can use Polycom enhancing enterprise communications and providing tangible ROI.”
SOLB worked with a team of FVC engineers, along with the team at Anmat Tech, to train its IT team managing the solution. During the implementation process, several video conferencing sessions were held with SOLB’s IT team to discuss and explore any possible issues including video conferences over low bandwidths of 64k and 512kbps.
Dr. Faisal added, “While the implementation of the video conferencing solutions is still relatively new, the results have already begun to show. There has been a noticeable reduction in the amount of travel and calls between SOLB branches for meetings. Our management has already begun to appreciate the quality and reliability that the solution has brought to SOLB. The fact that the HDX series can run excellent video conferences on very low bandwidth is extremely impressive. After solving some minor issues with the WAN connection, we are able to run several conferences based on 512kbps with high quality audio and video. It is also incredibly user friendly. Polycom phones also looks very elegant and luxurious specially the VVX and Sound IP Point series that we have selected.”
