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Features
Telecommunications >> VoIP is for Victory
5/27/2005
Natural Selection
Ironically, evolution is what forced officials at the College of Biblical Studies (TX) to turn to VoIP. In 2003, after the school purchased new buildings, officials decided that VoIP would be a more sensible and cost-effective communications strategy than continuously moving and reconfiguring their traditional phone system. In the past, such growing pains have forced technologists to unplug every user from a phone network, transport the entire system to a new building, then set up the whole kit and caboodle again. With VoIP, however, the process would be a cinch for CBS—adding new users would be as easy as copying a text file. And as long as new buildings had Ethernet, users could handle moves themselves by simply plugging IP telephones into the appropriate ports.
“As the school continued to grow, we wanted a communications technology that was so straightforward we could let users handle it to a certain degree by themselves,” says Shane Boothe, director of Information Technology. “We’re a small school and we don’t have a huge IT staff, so for us, given our situation of constant flux, the realities of VoIP just made the most sense.”
Boothe and his colleagues turned to a VoIP solution from Zultys (www.zultys.com). For an investment of roughly $125,000, the school purchased a Zultys MX250 VoIP server, as well as 87 Zultys Zip 4x4 VoIP telephones. Next, IT officials set out to make improvements to the school’s existing network, to ensure that the school had enough bandwidth to make VoIP work. With the help of network specialists from Zultys, CBS campus technologists upgraded some key network switches. They overhauled their approach to service, inking deals with a number of new Internet Service Providers, to ensure redundancy. Finally, the group reconfigured the network to make sure the expanded effort functioned smoothly with maximum uptime.
Returns on the VoIP and related investments started pouring in immediately. First and foremost, by sending voice traffic alongside data packets over the Internet Protocol, the school was able to trim long-distance tolls from its telecommunications budget. Perhaps more importantly, the investment in VoIP enabled the college to mothball its old PBX system, and downsize its IT/Telecom staff accordingly. Boothe says that since the Zultys system was installed 18 months ago, the school has eliminated at least three full-time positions, letting go of those employees whose sole jobs were to manage the old phone system. Today, he says, VoIP is just another server on the school’s multifaceted network, freeing technologists to spend their time working on what they know best: the network itself.
Shortening Distances
VoIP d'esn’t only help academic institutions cut down on long-distance costs; it helps schools truncate the long distances between campuses, too. Such was the case at Florida Atlantic University,where officials turned to VoIP to help them manage telecommunications across six campuses that span a 120-mile stretch of the Sunshine State. In 2004, when the university set out to build a seventh campus, technologists at the school’s main campus in Boca Raton wondered aloud if installing yet another PBX was the best way to go. Why invest in traditional analog equipment when they could blend voice and data traffic with VoIP? Telecommunications vendor Siemens (
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