New York Organ Donor Network Chooses NacTel/ShoreTel as its Critical Communications Provider

NEW YORK, Jan. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- NacTel (North Atlantic Communications), a leading provider of enterprise telecommunications and data systems has successfully installed and integrated a new critical communications system for the New York Organ Donor Network, the nation's second largest nonprofit, federally designated organ procurement organization. The system they installed is ShoreTel, the provider of a simple Unified Communication (UC) solutions based on its award-winning IP business phone system.

"ShoreTel provided exactly what we were looking for, a communications system that offers complete availability and reliability," said Jim Aranda, the Donor Network's vice president of administration and CFO. "Our mission is to save lives through organ and tissue donation. ShoreTel's resiliency is especially important because the events that might compromise typical phone and data systems are exactly the circumstances in which our organization might be most needed."

NacTel's president, Jamie Buswell, explained that ShoreTel's system limits the type of exposure Mr. Aranda was referring to by providing the ultimate in redundancy, route diversity and mobility, the three keys to business continuity.

"The reason we are so high on ShoreTel is that they employ a unique N+1 Technology -- it's a network that is not server-based, but appliance-based," Mr. Buswell said. "In a typical Nx2 or 2N network, everything is doubled -- very expensive and highly inefficient. With N+1 there is a single image across all appliances with distributed processing, so there is no single point of failure. By adding just one additional appliance -- the "1" of the N+1 technology -- any failure is handled, so essentially we are creating redundancy throughout the entire system."

Mr. Buswell added that there is no lack of fidelity, and because of the peer-to-peer connectivity in lieu of client-controlled connectivity, speed may actually increase.

Elaborating on how NacTel went about the business of listing and understanding every contingency for the New York Organ Donor Network, Mr. Buswell said that NacTel worked diligently as a team. "The process for the Donor Network entailed an analysis of every possible failure: from carrier to LAN to system to business continuity issues and more," he said. "From that data set, NacTel developed primary and secondary solutions, all backed up and tested for compliance."

According to Jim Valdez, the Donor Network's IT manager, what was compelling about working with NacTel was the consultative nature of the relationship, the installation and the ongoing support.

"NacTel had the wherewithal to do a demo at our location, which showed their expertise as well as the ease of the ShoreTel system," Mr. Valdez said. "Also, as a nonprofit, we expected our vendor to work with us on price, but what we did not expect was that the best technology would come in at the lowest cost. Jamie and his team are patient and courteous to a fault, even now during full-on operation and just not during the installation."

For more information about NacTel and the ShoreTel system, contact Jamie Buswell at 516-756-9000 or e-mail Jamie at [email protected].

About NacTel: Celebrating its 30th year in business NacTel (North Atlantic Communications) demystifies technology to deliver smart business solutions that make sense and satisfy budgets through a deep expertise of communication technologies, from modest key systems to enterprise networks to sophisticated call centers to Internet Protocol telephony and more. NacTel provides consulting, design, installation and ongoing service, specializing in designs that offer business continuation solutions that employ, redundancy, resiliency, route diversity, survivability and the wherewithal to keep all employees connected with "office anywhere" feature sets.

Since its inception in 1980, NacTel has conducted all business under a "trusted business partner" philosophy, offering a complete, full-service relationship that includes planning, products, services

and top industry expertise. As part of this, NacTel customers have enjoyed a single point of

contact for every telecommunications need, allowing NacTel to exercise a service commitment based on satisfying all customers, one at a time. For more information, visit www.nactelsystems.com.

About ShoreTel, Inc.: ShoreTel, Inc., (Nasdaq: SHOR) is the provider of brilliantly simple Unified Communication (UC) solutions based on its award-winning IP business phone system. We offer organizations of all sizes integrated, voice, video, data, and mobile communications on an open, distributed IP architecture that helps significantly reduce the complexity and costs typically associated with other solutions. The feature-rich ShoreTel UC system offers the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) and the highest customer satisfaction in the industry, in part because it is easy to deploy, manage, scale and use. Increasingly, companies around the world are finding a competitive edge by replacing business-as-usual with new thinking, and choosing ShoreTel to handle their integrated business communication. ShoreTel is based in Sunnyvale, California, and has regional offices in Austin, Texas, United Kingdom, Sydney, Australia and Munich, Germany. For more information, visit www.shoretel.com.

About New York Organ Donor Network: Founded in 1978, the New York Organ Donor Network is the second largest of the nation's 58 nonprofit, federally designated organ procurement organizations. The Donor Network is responsible for the recovery of organs, eyes and tissues for transplantation, and public and professional education efforts in the greater New York metropolitan area. It serves a highly diverse population of 13 million in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Staten Island, Long Island, Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Westchester and Pike County, PA. The organization partners with 10 transplant centers, more than 100 hospitals, as well as several eye and tissue banks. The New York Organ Donor Network is fully accredited by the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO). It is a member of the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS). For more information about the Donor Network, and to enroll as an organ donor in the New York State Donate Life Registry, visit www.donatelifeny.org.

SOURCE NacTel (North Atlantic Communications)