I’m sure that you’ve heard a lot of what might be termed “hype” about VoIP — that it’s great for saving money, it’s wonderful for employee productivity, and so on.
But how many real success stories have you heard? How many real-life situations are you aware of where VoIP has come out a clear winner over PSTN and POTS networks?
Let’s look into a one of those stories right now.
Education Market
If you have a large campus, odds are it’s already wired for POTS service.If you’re still using that network, you’re likely paying thousands of dollars in maintenance costs for the privilege.
Granted, that method might still work.But there’s a better way.
If your campus is wired for IP communications, like many colleges are, then it’s a simple matter to piggyback
VoIP is an excellent choice for telephony, especially when you have a large campus already networked for IP communications.It’s a simple matter, then, to piggyback VoIP communication on top of that network, as many colleges have found.
Before installing Toshiba’s Strata CIX1200 business phone system, your college might consider itself in the dark ages of communications.This particular system offers an ACD Call Center Solution that has two ACD groups.One could be used for fundraising, for instance, and the other for admissions.Another solution offered by the system is Ultimate Call Accounting, which allows tracking of calls and status of agents.In this manner, over 20,000 incoming calls can be smoothly handled every month.
The system also runs Toshiba’s MAS (Media Application Server), that enables many applications to live on one server.This reduces costs and saves on maintenance requirements.Also running on the Strata MAS are the institution’s Network eManager® remote administration, Stratagy® Voice Processing solutions, and Strata ACD Call Center Solution.
This system can support over 1,000 ports laid out over 28 buildings on your campus.It also allows for a limited number of mobile users off campus.
The upper management of the campus in question are thrilled with how reliable the system is overall, and how much more efficient they are as compared with the old system.They’re also very happy with the fact that they can pay one low price for everything — system lease, maintenance and all.And they are paying less for a state-of-the-art system than they were paying for maintenance alone on their old system.
Plus which, by using Toshiba’s Network eManager, the system administrator can manage the entire system from his desk.Using the same tool, the admin’s staff can move extensions, make additions, changes and moves, and do all sorts of things from their PCs.They can even troubleshoot problems and save lots of time, and address their users’ needs very fast.
Toshiba’s phones, also, are so user friendly that most users can quickly program them by themselves for basic functionality purposes, such as button functions, speed dial, and so on.
The bottom line for the college is twofold:Not only do they expect to save $170,000 over seven years — the expected life of the system (and the period of the warranty they have purchased), but they have gained some significant improvements in efficiencies as well.
They were paying easily that much in maintenance and servicing for the old POTS system.Changing to the new system was a smart move for the college, because even with the SIP trunking fees and warranty, they are still paying less per month.
Toshiba’s system exceeds the college’s goal of having a super-reliable system that’s not going to let them down.It also brings a host of new capabilities and features to the school.These include remote maintenance, call center abilities, the ability to serve remote workers, and so on.
