Telecommuters' Need For SpeedTelecommuters' Need For Speed

BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina wants to cut real-estate costs by turning some of its 1,000 customer-service representatives into telecommuters. It's upgrading its network to give call-center employees who work at home fast browser-based access to patient records and insurance claims stored on its mainframes.

As the first step to creating its virtual call center, BlueCross last week said it has launched a pilot project to use Cisco Systems 4700 and 2500 series routers to connect 51 reps in home offices to Cisco 7507 routers attached to the mainframes. The insurer is also adding Cisco AS5300 universal access servers and a PIX Firewall for dial-in users.

The company already has in place the software to enable Web access to legacy applications. BlueCross last year deployed NetManage Inc.'s Web-to-host integration tools, including Rumba ObjectX, which uses ActiveX, Java, and Dynamic HTML to make legacy data available via a browser without changing source code. BlueCross installed the software to give reps who work from the office access to information on its 150,000 customers within five mouse clicks.

"We're not just talking about embedding green screens into Web pages," says Bry Curry, director of .Net systems for BlueCross. "We wanted to bring screens up for reps that were already populated with customer information."