Perisher Blue

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Fujitsu Coral a hit at Perisher Blue

What do a ski resort and a serviced office provider have in common? The need to deliver effective customer communications to manage and grow their businesses. And if the ski resort is Perisher Blue in NSW snow country, and the serviced office provider is Australian-based Serviced Office Specialists (SOS), they have another thing in common: innovative PABX communications solutions from Fujitsu.

Perisher Blue Nestled in the Australian Alps in NSW, Perisher Valley is home to Australia's largest ski resort - Perisher Blue. Created in 1995 when four separate resorts - Perisher, Smiggins, Blue Cow and Guthega - were amalgamated, Perisher Blue is larger than many well-known resorts in Europe and America.

The sheer size and scope of Perisher Blue is difficult to describe. Its seemingly endless ski runs stretch over 1,250 hectares, offering top-to-bottom, side-to-side snow. Seven mountain peaks surround the resort, while 51 lifts and a rail system carved out of the mountains ensure thousands of skiers are able to enjoy their sport without any difficulty getting around.

Integration of the four geographically separated resorts created significant challenges for Perisher's management when the time came to choose a fully integrated telecommunications solution.

According to Perisher's IT Manager, Trevor Luker, Perisher Blue needed the functionality of a single modern PABX that would service the whole resort.

"Requirements included everything from handling centralised call-centre operations to servicing on-mountain extensions several kilometres from the nearest PABX," Luker said.

"Further, any solution had to make use of our existing fibre-optic and copper network, provide redundant paths into the Telstra network and also the ability to adapt and grow with the company. We were not confident a solution could be found that would do all of the above and still provide a reasonable return on investment."

Fortunately, the comprehensive networking capabilities of Fujitsu's Coral PABX offering combined with the imaginative solutions devised by the Perisher Blue team, Fujitsu Australia and Telstra resulted in a cost-effective, transparent network, linking all four sites with virtually unlimited room for expansion.

The hub of the network is Fujitsu's powerful Coral III PABX, currently running at over 300 ports and installed at the Perisher Valley Centre. One of the Coral III's many strengths is the capability to expand up to 6,000 ports and distribute its shelves remotely. This last feature was used to extend the Coral III out to a high-density remote shelf at the Perisher Ski Tube Terminal using two pairs of optic fibres for redundancy.

Coral has in-built fibre modems, and the remote shelf - modeled on the Coral II - is integral to the Coral III in terms of functionality. From the remote shelf further optic fibre networking was accomplished using 30-channel primary rate cards interfacing to external optic fibre modems, then out over fibre to two Coral SL PABXs at Blue Cow Mountain and Bullocks Flat respectively.

A further Coral SL PABX is likely to be installed in the near future at the Smiggins workshop via HDSL modems over an old copper cable. Also planned for the site is a trial of Coral's Voice over IP (VoIP) technology to link the Station Resort Hotel in nearby Jindabyne with the four other sites. Although the network sounds as if it is complex, the simplicity and cost-effectiveness amazed all involved.