TOKYO -- AT&T announced today that it has started implementation of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) network at Morinaga Milk Industry, a leading food manufacturer in Japan. The VoIP service is being implemented at all Morinaga’s 73 business locations in Japan including sales offices, branches, and plants. Implementation began in the Kyushu region, and is scheduled to be completed by June of this year.
To minimize the incremental costs of introducing the VoIP service, existing PBXs and telephone equipment is being used without little modification. A SIP server will be installed at the network center of Morinaga Milk Industry to handle voice data and VoIP gateways, and this will be linked to existing PBXs at each business site. In addition, a DSL network normally used for backup lines for data communications will be used for VoIP services. This means that the customer has no additional circuit cost when installing additional network applications such as VoIP.
With the implementation of this company-wide VoIP system, they will be able to substantially reduce expenses for voice communications, which in the past used external lines for its business locations. Morinaga Milk Industry says that they expect to save US$100,000 annually by using the service.
Morinaga Milk Industry is also considering further cost reductions from expanding the VoIP service to its group companies. Also it has started to study the introduction of IP phones as a next generation phone system to further reduce costs.
“AT&T has extensive experience accumulated around the world in the integration of voice and data. We are confident that this VoIP project, which minimizes additional costs, will contribute to greater corporate efficiency and further cost reduction for Morinaga,” said Norihiko Minato, President of AT&T Japan.
In addition, AT&T provides round-the-clock network monitoring and maintenance services connecting AT&T’s iGEMS (integrated Global Enterprise Management System) directly to a VoIP monitoring center.
In October last year, Morinaga Milk Industry completely updated its mission-critical company-wide network by utilizing outsourcing services provided by AT&T. Wide-area Ethernet networks link large-scale offices, while small and medium-sized offices are linked by IP-VPN (Virtual Private Networks) to provide high-speed communications with business centers and other business locations. The broadband wide-area Ethernet networks and IP-VPN are linked by an inter-work system designed to automatically switch between networks in the event of a failure.
About Morinaga Milk Industry Co., Ltd.
Morinaga Milk Industry, whose HQ is located at Minato-ku, Tokyo, is a leading manufacturer and vendor of milk, dairy products, ice cream, beverages and other food products. It has 3,257 employees and net sales of US$4.5 billion in fiscal 2003. It is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and was established in 1949. President is Koichi Furukawa.
For more information, please visit website at http://www.morinagamilk.co.jp/index.html.
About AT&T
For more than 125 years, AT&T (NYSE 'T') has been known for unparalleled quality and reliability in communications. Backed by the research and development capabilities of AT&T Labs, the company is a global leader in local, long distance, Internet and transaction-based voice and data services.
