Rothmans is one of the largest accountancy practices in the south of England today, with 12 offices and over 200 staff. It began as a one-man firm, set up by Algernon Rothman in Winchester in 1955.

The Challenge

Rothmans were moving from two sites in Segensworth into a listed building in Fareham High Street, and this building required full cabling for new and existing infrastructure. The building refit was all but complete, placing huge time pressure on the cabling job. In addition, BT Openreach had been unable to complete the new fibre install before the site move, leaving the whole move in jeopardy.

As well as moving sites, Rothmans wished to upgrade their incoming data link and existing telephone system.

Silver Lining stepped up to these challenges, marking our first entry into a multi-site account.

The Solution

In the face of mounting pressure to complete the site move on time, Silver Lining’s team of engineers worked long hours over the weekend to get the bulk of the cabling pulled through.

To remedy the incomplete fibre install, Silver Lining worked with our sister company OneCloud to provide a microwave radio link at short notice, to our nearest point of presence (POP) on top of the Fareham Council building.  The microwave link provided internet access for the hosted accountancy services that the Rothmans staff use and SIP telephony, thus enabling the office move to go ahead on schedule.

To ease the move of Rothmans’ existing telephone system, a loan system was provided, allowing the new directories to be pre-configured and the click-to-dial operator call transfer.

Silver Lining upgraded Rothmans’ existing Splicecom telephone system, allowing it to support new IP handsets and the iPCS mobility application. This allowed Rothmans to explore new options for expansion and remote working.

We also ported Rothmans’ legacy telephone lines and numbers to Gamma SIP telephony, and analogue fax lines to TalkTalk Business’ network-based fax-to-email service.

In addition, Silver Lining upgraded Rothmans’ incoming data link to high-speed Ethernet over fibre to the cabinet (EoFTTC) in order to support their upgraded SIP telephony services, as well as setting up Wi-Fi throughout the new site.

Benefits

Silver Lining helped to de-stress Rothmans’ office move by providing microwave radio internet access in a pinch and a loan telephone system. This allowed the business to focus entirely on settling into their new premises.

Rothmans’ newly upgraded IP telephony system offers them feature-rich contact centre functionality suited to their growing business needs. Their high-speed EoFTTC data connection is more than capable of supporting this system, as well as meeting any other data demands the business may have.