Corporate & Business · NPO & Social Impact · Telecommunications & Technology
The cheapest month one was not the cheapest contract
Lower opening rentals were paired with steeper escalation. Add a legacy settlement on financed PBX assets, separate SLA and call charges, and a line-rental treatment that changes mid-contract, and the quoted rental stops being the question.
- 16.5%
- on the scoped finance-rental comparison
- 104 → 80
- endpoint positions refined to devices
- 11.5%
- below the gross settlement benchmark
- 100%
- of on-net calls priced at zero
Proof context: A national multi-site voice, fibre and firewall estate mid-transition
The situation
An inherited estate mid-transition
The organisation had a fragmented national IP-telephony and connectivity environment: financed PBX assets, separate fibre charges, inconsistent equipment records, changing site requirements, and an incumbent transition carrying both commercial and operational risk.
Financed equipment is what makes this category difficult. A settlement obligation on the existing PBX sits between the organisation and any alternative, so the real question is never simply which supplier is cheaper per month.
Results
Each comparison, and what it actually covers
Scroll table sideways →
| Measure | Classification | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Selected opening finance-rental comparison | Selected / quoted | Index 83.5 against a comparator of 100.0 — 16.5% lower on the scoped finance-rental basis. |
| Subsequent comparison in the retained model | Modelled | Index 80.9 against a projected incumbent comparator — 19.1% lower on the same scoped basis. |
| Discounted incumbent-finance settlement | Negotiated / modelled | 11.5% below the gross finance settlement benchmark in the retained model. |
| Network recurring-cost schedule after estate movement | Observed estate change | Index 86.5 against the original contracted connectivity schedule — not presented as a pure negotiated saving. |
| Full lifecycle cost | Not stated | Line-rental treatment, settlement, SLA, calls and escalation all have to be included. Headline rental alone is not a lifecycle saving. |
The scope moved while the work ran
The initial tender map covered 14 locations and 104 endpoint positions — 80 physical phones and 24 soft-phone positions. The selected supplier proposal was built around 80 devices.
That is scope refinement, not a copy of the inherited estate. It also means the cost denominator changed during the engagement, as sites closed and lines changed. A percentage measured against a moving baseline has to carry that caveat, which is why the comparisons above are described as scoped rather than total.
What was compared
Supplier evaluation went well past headline rental
- Connectivity, hosted PBX, firewalls and failover — the infrastructure the voice service actually depends on.
- Call rates, number porting, uptime commitments and repair commitments.
- Training, equipment ownership, implementation sequencing and settlement exposure on the existing financed assets.
- Connectivity architecture by site: main hubs specified at materially higher bandwidth than branches, with a specialised lower-capacity link allowed for a care facility.
An implementation control worth copying
Site sign-off required equipment make, model, quantity and serial-number records, with proof of delivery linked to installation rather than to uncontrolled pre-delivery.
That single requirement is what prevents a migration from producing an equipment register that disagrees with the invoice eighteen months later — which is the condition most of these estates are found in.
Commercial significance
Not a phone-system purchase
The cost outcome depends on legacy finance, site count, line speeds, equipment, call traffic, SLA design, escalation, transition timing and the treatment of existing settlement obligations. Any of those can reverse an apparent advantage.
The immediate commercial comparison was therefore kept separate from lifecycle, implementation and governance risk — and the lifecycle figure was left unstated rather than estimated, because the evidence supports a scoped comparison and not a total one.
Supporting documents