THE city council's phone bill is set to be reduced by £250,000 a year.
The authority has signed a £3.2 million three-year deal with BT to provide a fixed-rate phone network.
The contract – which has an option to be extended to five years – will reduce the council's phone bill by around 25 per cent through moving the
whole organisation on to fixed-rate tariffs for national, international and mobile calls.
Councillor Gordon Mackenzie, the city's finance leader, said: "This deal is great news for Edinburgh.
"It will deliver immediate savings through a fixed price for all of our calls, and give us the vital management information we need to move towards a future with all calls and data sharing a single high-speed network."
Called BT Hosted Voice, it will give the council a virtual, private telephone network which all council sites will be connected to.
Tom Kelly, director of BT Public Sector Scotland, said: "The city is leading the way with this deal.
"Not only is Hosted Voice offering Edinburgh City Council fantastic value for money, it is also giving them a risk-free first step towards whichever converged future they choose to take."
The full article contains 205 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
