Centrix at the Palace

I'm sure you all know what a success this year's Golden Jubilee celebrations were, but what you may not have known is that Centrix played an important part in the Jubilee Concerts at Buckingham Palace by providing the telephony for the event.

Richard Burbage, Sales & Marketing Director for Centrix explains how it all came about. "Through our work in the past couple of years with the annual Party in the Park event in aid of the Prince's Trust we were invited to tender for the supply of the telephony requirements for the Palace concerts. In many ways there are a lot of similarities between the two events, although the pressure to deliver more services for the Palace event was greater, within a shorter period of time. We ended up delivering over 50 ISDN2 lines for use by various broadcasters such as ABC Sydney and BBC Radio 5 Live, and 80 analogue PSTN lines for use by various journalists to email over their copy to the editor for the next day. In addition we installed a 70-extension Avaya Definity communications server for use by various departments such as Production, Security, Catering, Traffic Control and Artist Hospitality."

In order to ensure the event was a success Centrix partnered once again with BT to provide the network. Theresa Chalder-Royle, Project Co-ordinator for Centrix liased with BT and added the following, "An event of this size and nature was always going to involve in a lot of hard work behind the scenes. BT were our obvious partner of choice for the network as there is very little competition that could provide the quantity of lines required in such a short space of time, and on a temporary basis too. I'm pleased to say that BT once again delivered and their on-line ordering service to their partners proved invaluable with the number of circuits to be processed."

Andy Jamieson, Senior Project Engineer, was present throughout the event and had this to say "It's not every day that you get a Police escort from Hyde Park corner to the Palace for a customer and therefore during the three weeks it took to complete the installation there was genuinely never a dull moment. I'm pleased to say that everything on the day went smoothly and with a bit of luck we'll be asked to return in 50 years time for the next Jubilee! After all, I know my way around the grounds of the Palace better than anyone now and it would be a shame not to have to return at some stage."

Richard Burbage finishes the story by adding "Everyone at Centrix was proud to play a part and to see our name in the official programme was a real highlight. All in all it really could not have been more of a success although I have to admit when I switched on my TV on the Sunday evening to the News Flash of the fire at the Palace my heart did skip a beat or two!".

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