Voice over IP (New Telephone) Project Information:
Transition Cross Reference
A list of converted lines with both old and new numbers can be found
by clicking this link.
Phone Tutorials
An interactive guide to the new telephones can be found below. Most users
will be primarily interested in the 7941 Model.
A dialing and voice mail "quick reference" guide can be found here. A detailed
map of voice mail features and the menu structure can be found here.
Conferencing
For more information on voice conferencing and requesing a conference bridge, click here.
Project Purpose
Currently, all voice communication services at LHUP are outsourced via
a Centrex contract with Verizon, Inc. The current contract expires
on June 30, 2007. The University is seeking to avoid renewing
this costly contract for services by in-sourcing our voice services.
Additionally, the University's current telephone copper plant (wiring)
is at end of life and is beginning to degrade. Replacing this utility in
a conventional manner is not fiscally feasible.
A Voice over IP communications system will not only allow the University
to reduce operational costs, but will also provide for telephony features
not currently available through the existing Centrex service.
Why VoIP?
The voice communications industry is rapidly moving away from circuit-switched
networks to IP packet-based networks for voice services. There are
currently more IP endpoints being sold than traditional analog and TDM digital
endpoints. It is wise for LHUP to make this transition as it will position the
University for future communications applications as voice, video and data
converge further.
Project Timeline
The LHUP Computing and Instructional Technology Department plans to begin
deployment in August starting with core switching and call routing
equipment. Endpoint rollouts should begin in earnest by January 2007 with
a rough project completion date of April 2007. Analysis for "Phase 2"
services and functionality would begin at that time.
Project Presentation
This presentation outlines the project and the
justification for doing the project. It is best viewed using Internet Explorer
6 or higher.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How much will the project cost?
The project actually will save the University in excess of $150,000 per year,
including equipment and HR costs.
- What will my phone be like
Your phone will, in all likelyhood, be a Cisco corporate IP telephone
that will look and function much like a regular telephone. It will
have a larger display and provide additional functions beyond that
of traditional phones.
- Will call quality suffer?
Actually, for on-campus calls, the call quality will be better than that
of a traditional analog phone. For off-campus calls, the call quality
will be dicatated by the line condition of the off-site party.
- What about Clearfield? How does this impact the branch campus?
As we have a direct fiber-optic link to the Clearfield campus, we will be
able to route all voice calls to that campus via that link, thus reducing
costs. Calls will also be able to be made between the campus simply
by dialing the extension rather than dialing the entire ten digit number.
The Clearfield site will also be configured for remote survivability in the
event that the fiber connection would be lost.
- Sometimes the campus network seems slow. Should phones really run on
the same network?
As a complementary project, the campus network will be upgraded to a
fully switched and managed fast Ethernet network with gigabit uplinks to the
datacenter where necessary. You should see a visible performance increase
following this upgrade. Additionally, some of the latency that you
experience can be attributed to the existing servers and is not related
to network conditions or congestion.
- But what about reliability? The network does go down from time to time...
One of the features of the network upgrade is a fully redundant network
core (2 core switches and 2 server aggregators) as well as redundant uplinks to
each building on campus. The implementation team is committed to providing
"five nines" (99.999%) uptime as is expected in the telecommunications
industry. This amounts to less than 10 hours of downtime per year. In
addition to the redundant network equipment, there will also be
triple-redundant call routing servers in operation.
- How will this affect voicemail?
Currently, our voicemail service is also outsourced through Verizon
using their OptiMail service. As part of the project, voicemail will
be brought back inside the University. A limited deployment of unified
messaging (convergence of voicemail and e-mail) is also planned and may
be expanded depending on demand.
- Will I get a new phone number?
Probably. The specific details of the transition have not yet been
established, but as we will be using a different carrier for outside
voice services, your direct inward dialing, or "DID" number will
likely change. We are attemping to retain the existing 4 digit extensions
and merely migrate to a new 3 digit exchange. Further details will be
given once they are known.
- I've seen that there are issues with residential VoIP providers such
as Vonage and the use of 911. Will this be a problem here as well?
No. One of the top priorities of the implementation team is to ensure
that emergency services calls are routed correctly and provide the
required E911 caller identification. To this end, we would ask that
any telephone moves after implementation are coordinated thorough the
CIT Department.
- Is this "bleeding-edge" technology really a fit for higher education?
Shouldn't we be pursuing something with a proven track record?
Believe it or not, VoIP is not as new as it appears to be. The
technology has been available for several years and has now been adopted
by corporations as large as Ford Motor Company and in several educational
institutions such as Florida International University. For more information
on the penetration of VoIP into higher education, as well as some responses
to some commonly-held myths, please see
this article
published in the March 2006 issue of University Business.
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