Voorhees College Enhances VoIP with Sphericall Tools

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 10/08/08
Voorhees College in Denmark, SC has deployed NEC Unified Solutions' Sphericall to provide users with software-based voice and desktop communications tools as part of its voice over IP system. Sphericall provides a means for faculty and staff to interact between departments and connect with students using IP voice or desktop communication tools across the college, which has five locations in South Carolina.

"I believe that NEC Sphericall was the right solution for Voorhees College in a number of ways--first and foremost because I felt that it fit the specific communications needs of both our faculty and students," said Tim Kentopp, CTO. "The fact that we have achieved significant cost savings helps us from a budgetary standpoint tremendously. Even better, our staff has an advanced means of communicating that has fit their expectations--and this is something other area colleges currently do not offer."

Voorhees faculty and staff leverage a number of the unified communications (UC) features within Sphericall, including instant messaging, click-to-call, presence-based call routing, and unified messaging to the Microsoft Outlook inbox. The application provides centralized management features and automated failover, allowing calls to automatically re-route when service is disrupted in one of the college's locations. Students and faculty also have four-digit dialing throughout the college's multi-site network.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

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