Notre Dame Telephone Systems Will Move to VoIP

Service from SBC will treat voice as another form of data

11/16/2004

By James Cope

Beginning in 2005, the University of Notre Dame through a contract with SBC Communications Inc. will begin moving campus telephone services from the current traditional switched system to a voice-over-IP (VoIP) architecture.

VoIP, explains Notre Dame Chief Technology Officer Dewitt Latimer, transmits voice calls as data packets by employing the same internetworking protocols used for sending and receiving e-mail and data files across computer networks.

The VoIP initiative calls for SBC in a five-year phased project to replace the University's Centrex-based network with its hosted IP communications service. Ultimately, VoIP will serve the telephone needs of approximately 16,000 users on the University's main campus and in remote offices.

"VoIP will give the Notre Dame community a range of communications features that standard telephone systems can't match, and will save time and money on adding and moving telephone handsets," Latimer says.

For example, the SBC VoIP system will provide "unified messaging," through which a single inbox accommodates both voice and e-mail messages on a VoIP telephone or personal computer or both.

"The VoIP system will be able to chase you down via your office, cell or home phone instead of you chasing down your messages," Latimer explains, noting it's up to each user to set call routing preferences via a special private Web page.

The system is plug-and-play, allowing University of Notre Dame faculty, students, and staff to move locations, add new phones, or change service instantly. The University will be able to scale up or down without calling new vendors or ordering new technology.

Additionally, faculty, students, and staff will be able to use IP phones to access the hosted VoIP service and all of its features from any Internet connection, in dorm rooms or faculty offices, on-location or remotely.