From Legacy Lines to a Fully Connected School
One project. One provider. Cloud VoIP, DfE-standard gigabit leased line, automatic failover broadband, Smoothwall content filtering, and live MIS integration — all deployed for a 1,458-pupil Hampshire secondary school.
97.5 hrs
Saved per year on absence handling
£1,170
Annual staff saving from AI absence line
10X B
Broadband speed 100Mbps to 1Gbps
0 min
Own time during 3CX to Yeastar migration
The Challenge
Analogue roots, growing pains, and a phone system holding the school back
The Mountbatten School is a large Hampshire secondary school with 1,458 students and 170 staff in Romsey. Before joining The VoIP Shop, the school was running on a single 100/100Mbps leased line and a legacy analogue phone system. Features were limited: no Microsoft Teams presence integration, no automated absence handling, and reception staff fielding every single absence call manually.
For a secondary school of this size, reliable, feature-rich communications are not a luxury. They underpin everything from safeguarding to daily administration. The school needed a single trusted provider who could handle everything.
The Journey
Three years from analogue lines to an AI-powered phone system
The Mountbatten School did not switch everything overnight. Their move to modern communications happened in stages, built on a foundation of trust with
The VoIP Shop.
- 2023
Mountbatten joins
The VoIP Shop
The school moves away from analogue lines, adopting 3CX cloud telephony, DfE compliant leased line broadband, Smoothwall, and Vodafone mobile SIMs under one managed provider for the first time.
- 2023 - 2025
A growing partnership
Over three years, The VoIP Shop handles support, connectivity, and security for the school.Responsiveness and reliability build the trust needed for the next step
- 2026
Upgrade to Yeastar
The VoIP Shop identifies Yeastar as the natural next move, a modern, AI-powered phone system built for schools, with Teams presence integration, AI call summaries, AI call transcription, and a seamless MIS absence line. The migration completes overnight with zero downtime.
Yeastar has become the go-to phone system for UK schools. It is straightforward to use, packed with features, and comes with built-in AI capabilities that older systems simply cannot match, including AI call summaries, AI call transcription, Microsoft Teams presence integration, and deep MIS connectivity. The VoIP Shop recommended the switch because they see the same pattern across every school they work with: once staff use Yeastar, they do not look back.
The Solution
A complete communications and connectivity overhaul, built around how schools actually work
The VoIP Shop
designed and deployed a full-stack solution covering voice, data, mobile, security, and MIS integration.
Yeastar phone system
The school moves away from analogue lines, adopting 3CX cloud telephony, DfE compliant leased line broadband, Smoothwall, and Vodafone mobile SIMs under one managed provider for the first time.
DfE compliant leased line
Upgraded from 100/100Mbps to a full 1Gbps symmetrical leased line, delivering 10x the capacity for the same estate.
Smoothwall firewall and filtering
Enterprise-grade firewall combined with intelligent content filtering, blocking harmful and inappropriate content to keep every student safe online across the entire school network
AI absence line
Parents call in, the AI captures the student details, and the absence is written directly back into SIMS with no receptionist needed.
FTTP failover broadband
True failover via a separate FTTP provider at 1,000Mbps download, keeping the school online even if the leased line has an issue.
Vodafone mobile SIMs
10 managed SIMs on the Vodafone network, with staff mobile connectivity handled under one supplier relationship.
The Migration
From Legacy end of Life Analogue PBX to Modern Cloud based Yeastar Phone system powered by AI, re programmed existing handsets, existing SIP channels, zero disruption
One of the most common concerns schools have when changing phone systems is downtime. The VoIP Shop eliminated that risk entirely by deploying the Yeastar platform in parallel with 3CX before any switchover happened. All call routing, IVR menus, extensions, and configurations were mirrored and fully tested in advance. When everything was verified, the number transfer happened overnight and staff arrived the next morning to the same handsets, the same numbers, and a better system. No retraining, no new hardware costs, no disruption to school operations. Reusing existing handsets and SIP channels also meant the upgrade delivered a significant improvement in functionality at minimal additional cost.
The Results
Measurable time savings, faster broadband, and a smarter absence process
Smoothwall firewall and content filtering, DfE compliance built into the network
Keeping Students Safe Online
Smoothwall firewall and content filtering for The Mountbatten School
Firewall protection
Smoothwall's enterprise-grade firewall sits at the boundary of the school network, monitoring and controlling all incoming and outgoing traffic. It blocks unauthorised access, prevents malicious connections, and protects staff and student data from external threats, giving the school a robust first line of defence without placing the management burden on internal IT staff.
Content filtering
Smoothwall's intelligent content filtering automatically categorises and blocks access to harmful, inappropriate, or distracting websites in real time. Whether it is explicit content, extremist material, gambling, or other age-inappropriate sites, the filter works silently in the background across every device on the network, ensuring students can browse and learn safely without staff needing
to intervene manually.
Together, the firewall and content filtering give The Mountbatten School confidence that their duty of care to students is being met at the network level, in line with the expectations set out in Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSiE). Staff can focus on teaching; the technology handles the protection.
Ongoing Support
Responsive, reliable support that schools can actually count on
Switching provider is only half the story. What keeps a school with the same partner for three years and counting, is what happens after the install. The Mountbatten School's networking manager specifically called out the quality of ongoing support from The VoIP Shop. Tickets are resolved quickly, queries get real responses, and the team is proactive rather than reactive. For a large secondary school where any communications outage affects hundreds of staff and students, that responsiveness is not a nice-to-have. It is essential. The VoIP Shop manages the full stack for Mountbatten: phone system, broadband, firewall, filtering, and mobile. Having one point of contact for every communications issue means problems get resolved faster, with no finger-pointing between suppliers.
"Switching our phones, landlines, broadband, and MIS integrations over to The VoIP Shop has been the absolute best decision we've made. From day one, their team has been incredibly supportive, providing well-structured planning to ensure the smoothest transition possible.For one department in particular, the AI MIS integrated absence line has been an absolute gamechanger. It has saved our attendance team hours of work every week by automating absence calls (the system handles phone traffic automatically with an easy way to verify before writing back to SIMS) and enabling better prioritisation so the team can focus on high-priority tasks. After a full year of working together, their handling of general support tickets and queries has been fantastic. Compared to our previous provider, they are exceptionally responsive and resolve issues in a highly timely manner. All in all, The VoIP Shop is a perfect fit for our school budget, and the entire team couldn't be happier. Highly recommended!"
- Zakir Chowdhary, Networking Manager, The Mountbatten School
Could The VoIP Shop do this for your school?
Whether you need a full School VoIP Connect deployment or just want to start with connectivity and filtering, we’ll scope a solution built around your school and stay with you after go-live.
