Oxford University

Like many large organisations with complex telephony needs and an ageing switching system, Oxford University wanted to upgrade to a telephony system that would offer more sophistication, give them advanced features, provide the facility for more flexible working, and easier administration for routine tasks such as general housekeeping.

The legacy system the University had been using connected to a switch which linked to traditional telephones on desks and included the use of direct dial numbers. The University campus spreads across the whole city and there are 23 separate telephone systems connected via a DPNSS network with some IP trunking.

The only really viable way forward was to migrate over to VoIP as that is now the choice that high-end (PBX) manufacturers are offering. VoIP will, by default, give the University a greater degree of functionality.

Commenting Alan Hillyer at the University said: “We realised that as our needs grew and greater demands were being placed on our existing systems, they were unable to cope. We needed to find a cost effective solution that not only met our current needs but which was also scalable and could expand with our future demands. Crucially, we needed to integrate the new system with the minimum of disruption to our service delivery levels.”

Using a CISCO Call Manager as a node to integrate with the 25,000 extensions, C3 was able to connect using “Session Initiation Protocol”, (SIP), to the call manager to offer the University a considerably extended portfolio of applications that will match its needs both now and into the future.

For example, the VoIP system allows for a virtual call centre, so that staff off-site can be contacted as if they were in the University, either via conventional voice calls or soft phones running on users PCs; a lone worker management system; emergency response team call-out and SMS capabilities, among other previously unavailable benefits.

The Cisco Call Manager can interconnect to multiple sites and users can log on to the C3 system from wherever they are. Staff can dial into their messages via their traditional phone or IP telephone.

Additionally, the C3 system includes a web interface thus allowing staff to see and listen to messages, manage voice mail messages, change and schedule personal greetings and access other options available to them via the web interface.