Nortel networks win a 10 year project for the Social Security Administration (SSA), which is upgrading telephone systems in its field offices to provide voice over IP. The project is worth $300 million.

The company said that SSA has intentions to upgrade 1,600 field offices to IP telephony based on Nortel’s Communication Server 1000 IP PBX. Nortel further said that the Telephone Systems Replacement Project (TSRP) will help SSA to better handle the coming inflow of retiring baby boomers and offer more efficient call handling to more rapidly connect callers to the experts who are able to answer their questions regarding SSA.

Project also includes contact center, unified messaging and integrated voice response for up to 55,000 SSA field agents. Net Payne, vice president of North American marketing at Nortel said “This validates our ability to do large-scale, mission-critical deployments”.

He further said “Nortel also updated its Mobile Communication 3100 fixed mobile convergence offering to allow phone calls to be handed off to a wireless LAN, available now. It provides a seamless handoff between the internal corporate WLAN and the mobile device. It can save 30 percent of wireless costs”.