Network Convergence and IP Telephony

Position paper Network convergence and IP Telephony Maricopa Community Colleges, Fall 2005

Building a converged network that supports voice, data, and video traffic has been a strategic direction for most organizations since the mid to late 1990’s timeframe. Many colleges in Maricopa established this as a critical factor for the design and implementation of their network infrastructure as long as 10 years ago. It’s true we have made significant progress to accommodate the capability to deliver multimedia audio & video over a common data network thanks to integrated web services which enables encoding of audio and video packets. But we have only scratched the surface to leverage this capability and truly impact our business processes and introduce technology changes that will affect our overall total cost ownership. Voice over IP (IP Telephony) is a technology that enables Maricopa the following benefits besides the obvious value of utilizing a common network for deliver voice, video, and data traffic.

 Infrastructure savings by eliminating the need for physical cabling for separate voice, video, and data networks.  Cost savings by creating the opportunity to bypass toll charges for long distance charges  Staffing efficiency by consolidating the number of service platforms to manage  Mobility enhancements by creating the opportunity to offer phone support on a variety of IP enabled devices.  Service level enhancements through application integration like Customer Help Desks, Unified Messaging, and Enterprise Resource Planning such as Peoplesoft Student.

IP Telephony has matured over the years and is projected to account for 80% of the total number of PBX/key telephone systems within the next 2-3 years or $5.6 billion (via internetnews.com, February 2005). With the bond passage Maricopa is positioned to fund capital expansion and adopt new and improved technologies such as IP Telephony. According to informal surveys of the various colleges in Maricopa most have acknowledged that any new building construction will adopt IP Telephony as the method of delivering phone services.

Given the above factors the direction for Maricopa as it relates to network convergence and IP Telephony is to research, design, implement, and migrate telephone services from the traditional environment to Voice over IP services. The focus of the Maricopa VoIP Committee, a Technology Leadership subcommittee, will be to develop specifications and best practice recommendations to inform and prepare colleges with the choices they should consider for adopting this technology. The follow areas will be addressed:

 Network infrastructure readiness (including physical layer, power, and resiliency)  Quality of service and management metrics (including bandwidth and security)  Phased implementation (co-existence of TDM and VoIP technology)  Service level enhancements

For additional information contact you TLC representative