Australia's largest residential VoIP installation goes live

Australia's largest residential VoIP installation was launched in Melbourne this week with the opening of Central Equity's Melbourne Tower and City Tower apartment buildings.

The opening of the $300 million luxury towers marked the completion of Central Equity's Southbank Central project.

"Southbank Central is the single largest residential VoIP installation to date in Australia and is providing residents with the option of cheaper calls using sophisticated multi-feature telephones as well as faster and more reliable internet access," said Central Equity chairman, Eddie Kutner.

Construction of the towers commenced in August 2002 and was completed last month. Kutner highlighted the considerations for communication facilities during construction.

"During construction Central Equity installed high speed network cabling throughout both Towers to enable corporate grade broadband internet access as well as VoIP telephone calls."

The Southbank Central VoIP service uses Cisco technology and is being provided by telecommunications company, My Telecom.

Having networking costs spread across the 630 units of the Southbank Central project helped keep costs down, Kutner said.

"Broadband to a single residence is normally expensive but the innovative Central Equity model sees the costs of broadband access shared over many apartments so that residents van enjoy greater value and higher reliability."