From BroadWorks to Digital Tide: A Successful Migration Story

February 25, 2024 · 3 min to read

In this article, we will tell you about a telephone company that started offering a cloud PBX service based on BroadWorks, realized that providing a competitive system with the Cisco platform was becoming challenging, and successfully migrated to Digital Tide.

About the Telephone Company

Our client is a large telecom company providing mobile and fixed-line services. They primarily work with corporate clients and hold a 40% market share of the B2B segment in a big city.

About ten years ago, the operator started providing business services, including a cloud PBX. For launching this solution, they chose Cisco BroadWorks, one of the most popular platforms at that time and well-suited for handling hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

BroadWorks Limitations

After several years, the operator began to notice the following characteristics of BroadWorks:

Slow platform development.
Cisco updated BroadWorks only a few times a year while other vendors evolved their products more often. Hence, competitors offered their subscribers a more up-to-date service.
Lack of functionality.
Initially, subscribers were satisfied with call forwarding, call transfer, conferencing, and IVR. However, over time, they started to need integrations with CRM systems, call tracking, and other modern features Cisco couldn’t provide.
Inflexibility.
Customizing the platform required vendor developers' involvement. However, maintaining a connection with BroadWorks was expensive and time-consuming, so the operator’s engineers stopped pursuing these enhancements.

Despite these limitations, the operator was reluctant to switch platforms due to purchasing BroadWorks licenses. Nevertheless, their subscribers started migrating to more modern cloud PBX services. As a result, the operator decided to migrate to Digital Tide, as this platform best met their requirements.

Migration to Digital Tide

The migration from Cisco BroadWorks to Digital Tide occurred in several stages.

Stage 1: Digital Tide Platform Deployment

Engineers deployed the platform within the operator’s network, configured the SIP trunk, and connected the telephony. Once the operator accessed Digital Tide, they began onboarding new subscribers directly to this platform.

Stage 2: Platform Testing

The company spent three months testing the platform. During this time, the workload on the operator’s engineers increased as they had to manage operations on both Digital Tide and BroadWorks simultaneously. After the operator and the vendor were confident that new subscribers were seamlessly using the cloud PBX service based on Digital Tide, the migration of existing subscribers began.

Stage 3: Migration of Subscribers to Digital Tide

The operator contacted existing clients and offered them to switch to Digital Tide, and the majority agreed. Managers discussed the new service packages and pricing plans, and each customer received another domain.

Some subscribers rented IP phones and VoIP gateways from the operator, while others used their own equipment. In both cases, the operator’s engineers assisted with setup if any difficulties arose.

Several customers were reluctant to pay more after migration to the new platform. The operator agreed to keep them on their existing pricing plans and transferred them to Digital Tide as part of the planned work. Clients were granted access to their user domains via email.

Become a partner

Digital Tide will help telecom operators migrate from Cisco BroadWorks or any other cloud PBX platform and launch a better service for B2B clients.

Conclusion

The migration to the new platform took approximately six months and proceeded with revenue growth without losing the subscriber base. The company achieved the following results:

The product gained numerous new features, significantly enhancing its relevance and competitiveness. Subscribers were pleased with a branded softphone and mobile application.
The operator’s engineers appreciated the ability to reach out to the vendor’s developers at any time, and product managers valued access to up-to-date information on the platform development for the coming year.
Many tasks shifted into the vendor’s responsibility, including installation administration, monitoring, and third-line support.
The average bill increased almost two-fold. Thanks to the richer platform functionality, the company expanded its pricing policy and raised the price for the cloud PBX service.

The operator identified the limitations of BroadWorks in time and successfully migrated to Digital Tide. Now, they increase service sales while the vendor regularly updates the platform and is ready to answer any questions anytime.

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Alexey Belyakov

CEO