Case Study: MacDonald Island Park achieves reliable telephony and ~70% cost savings with Digium Switchvox

MacDonald Island Park - Customer Case Study

MacDonald Island Park in Fort McMurray, Alberta, is Canada’s largest community recreation and leisure complex serving a boomtown of about 120,000. The park had suffered years of poor telephony—an improperly installed Mitel/Allstream PBX that dropped calls, trapped callers on hold and offered no local vendor support (the nearest big-box suppliers were 300 miles away), while replacement quotes from Cisco and Avaya ran $125,000 and $100,000 respectively.

IT director Jason Carlson implemented Digium’s Switchvox UC himself, deploying the Switchvox SMB355 with nearly 150 IP phones, 20 IVRs, nine call queues and 12 analog fax lines; the system cost $46,500 (about $35,000 net after selling the old PBX) and used Meraki PoE switches to cut hardware costs. The result was a reliable, easy-to-manage phone system that handles roughly 1,200 calls a day, supports up to 400 users, enables remote diagnostics and oversight, and delivered the functionality and support the park needed at a fraction of the competitor prices.

MacDonald Island Park