By Sharla Sikes

The U.S. Social Security Administration recently named Nortel Networks the contractor on a 10-year, $300 million phone upgrade project. Nortel claimed the project is one of the largest deployments yet as the SSA upgrades the phone systems in its field offices to VoIP.

The upgrade will bring VoIP to 1,600 field offices using Nortel’s Communication Server 1000 IP PBX, with more than 200 offices active by the end of the first year, and 500 following each year in the upcoming years. SSA has imaginatively named the project the Telephone Systems Replacement Project, which will also include contact center, unified messaging and integrated voice response for as many as 55,000 SSA field agents. Nortel plans to install its Media Processing Server 500 IVR, Unified Messaging 2000 and CallPilot contact center systems, and Nortel IP handsets.

“This validates our ability to do large-scale, mission-critical deployments,” said Net Payne, vice president of North American marketing at Nortel.

AT&T protested the program after Nortel won the contract in July 2007, but Nortel retained the contract. The SSA hopes the project will be in place in time to handle an expected increase of new users with baby boomers nearing retirement age.

“SSA has confirmed its initial assessment that our combination of software, services, government contracting expertise and world-class Nortel products offers the best value for this project,” said Chuck Saffell, chief executive officer of Nortel Government Solutions, in a statement. “We’ve committed the necessary resources to meet SSA’s aggressive deployment schedule, and we’re eager to get started.”

Joining Nortel on the project are General Dynamics Corp., Black Box Network Services, Shared Technologies Inc., York Telecom, High Wire Networks Inc., NetIQ Corp., NetCom Technologies Inc. and Planning and Learning Technologies Inc.

Nortel is also involved with VoIP deployment projects at the Senate and Defense, Energy, Transportation and Veterans Affairs departments, the company said.

I just hope the SSA isn’t spending my Social Security checks on this behemoth of a project.

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