The council spent A$250,000 (US$190,000) connecting its library, main civic center and pit complexes at the Mount Panorama racing circuit with Mitel 3300 ICP systems, while the upgrade of remaining facilities is expected to take two years, depending on budget.

Fawkes said network downtime was critical as the council services "about 37,000 residents [with] hundreds of daily requests [which] is why reliability is critical".

The Web-based network installed in April this year previously relied on Fawkes to administer the patchwork system, which can now be managed by IT staff from any computer.

"The new telephony network allows other IT staff to administer the system which makes user support far less complicated," he said. "Administration is entirely Web-based while using automatic reporting tools."

While the network integrated with existing infrastructure, there was a challenge 'to some degree' for staff to familiarize themselves with the technology, he said.