Feb. 28, 2011

Heartland Automotive Services, has signed a managed services contract for a full-featured VoIP (Voice over IP) solution with Hughes Network Systems, LLC.. The high availability, converged voice and data broadband solution will enable Heartland to eliminate expensive POTS lines at its retail locations, significantly cutting its phone system costs and improving customer service capabilities at its hundreds of retail locations.

"Hughes is providing us a resilient, state-of-the-art broadband network with business-grade VoIP services that will help us improve customer service and support corporate training requirements, while at the same time, reduce our operating and infrastructure costs," said Rob Rajkowski, Chief Operating Officer of Heartland.  

Dallas-based Heartland operates more than 400 locations within 17 markets across the country, serving more than five million customers annually. The Hughes Managed VoIP Solution will improve customer service and the employee environment, and significantly reduce Heartland's phone bill by eliminating long distance charges while providing converged voice and data capabilities. Hughes WAN Optimization will provide additional bandwidth at each store for managing combined voice and data traffic, and will incorporate new Active QoS™ technology to ensure high-quality voice calls over affordable DSL facilities.

"Heartland will be the first of many business customers to take advantage of our new Hughes VoIP and high availability networking solution," said Mike Cook, senior vice president at Hughes. "We are confident our ActiveQoS technology is a game changer and addresses a heretofore underserved market -- namely industries such as retail that have distributed branch networks and would benefit from convergence and high availability, but cannot justify the expense of an MPLS network. Hughes is offering a better alternative by providing an affordable broadband solution fully managed by Hughes."

The Hughes Managed VoIP Service provides superior voice reliability with guaranteed quality-of-service (QoS) made possible by Hughes ActiveQoS technology. The technology adapts to traffic demands using innovative optimization methods, ensuring a high quality voice experience with minimal packet loss and jitter over multiple voice calls.

The Hughes Managed VoIP solution will provide Heartland a full range of enhanced voice features such as call routing, 3-way calling, voice mail, and detailed call records, which were lacking in its traditional voice service. A flat rate for all local and long distance domestic U.S. calls means Heartland will avoid unpredictable long-distance charges at its stores and will also benefit from simplified billing management. All phone and data services are consolidated into a single bill from a single vendor -- Hughes -- rather than having to deal with multiple regional service providers.