Large Public University in California

This public university was opened in 1965 and has grown to an enrolment of over 16,000 students and over 500 faculty members. In 1984, the University invested in a MD-110 system and continued to upgrade it over the next 30+ years. Facing the need to expand the system’s capabilities as well as perform a major upgrade to the core campus network, the University began an evaluation of replacement options in 2008.

The University chose to upgrade from their MD-110 to Aastra’s MX-ONE® Telephony Server. “We were essentially able to keep all existing services, functions and telephones intact and add the additional capabilities that come with MX-ONE,” said one PBX engineer from the University. “Our users didn’t need to be retrained on new equipment and services; in fact, most of them were unaware there was even a major upgrade performed to the system.” Working with the network engineers, they designed a network that met both Data and Telecom needs. Telecom was able to obtain a highly stable and robust network to link their 22 different sites. The networking group received additional funding for their project as well as the added benefit of having the core network on 48-volt DC power plants. They recently linked the remote sites entirely over the campus data network, eliminating dedicated circuits only used for phone calls. This gave the remote site badly needed additional bandwidth and allowed removal of some older fractional T-1 units.

The gradual transition to VoIP and SIP allows the University to work within the constraints of a severe budget shortage. Rather than being forced to replace the entire phone system and inconvenience all of their users, they performed a smaller-scale software/hardware upgrade and can make the rest of the transition at their own pace and within budget constraints.

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