Download This Is the Title of the Presentation

Implementing IP Telephony
on a Campus: The good,
the bad, and the ugly
MiCTA 2005 Spring Conference
Brenda Helminen, Director,
Telcom Engineering
In the beginning… (Spring 2000)
 Centrex service (~ 2000 lines); contract
ending June 2003
 A la carte pricing model; LD revenue covered




trunk costs, etc.
Phone set inventory fully amortized
Converged network/telephone staff
Little inter-building copper cable plant
Robust data network & physical
infrastructure
In summary
MTU already doing video over IP. IP technology fit our
strategic goals.
MTU was in a good position to ‘leap frog’ classic PBX
technology if IP telephony was mature enough to
implement.
“The primary goals of this project are to stabilize the
cost of telephone service for campus and to enhance
the business support functionality of our telephone
service.” memo to campus October 2002
Intuition strong that ….
Managing one physical/datalink
infrastructure would significantly reduce
cost of all end user/edge management
tasks (work order processing, device
configuration, troubleshooting,
monitoring) while increasing the
reliability, functionality, and integration
of all the services provided.
Anticipated Technical
Challenges
 Voice quality on packet-based network
 Power to IP phones
 Power fail plan
 E911 compliance
 Vendor support
Timeline
 Initial Plan: Don’t do anything dumb, but try to
finish before Centrex contract end date of
June 2003
 For a variety of technical reasons, we did not
start converting departments until early 2003.
Availability of PoE-standard equipment was a
major factor. (aka Plan B)
 Pricing model redone – (7/2002): LD covers
LD call costs, bundled common options
Timeline (con’t)
VoIP Project Progress
2000
1800
1600
# of Units
1400
1200
1000
Centrex Lines
800
Plan B PBX Ports
600
Legacy phones
400
IP Phones
200
0
3
4
5
3
4
5
2
3
3
4
4
-0
-0
-0
-0
-0
-0
-0
-0
-0
-0
-0
r
r
r
n
n
n
c
c
c
p
p
a
a
a
Ju
Ju
Ju
M
M
M
De
Se
De
Se
De
Bottom line?
 Technology has been mature enough to
deploy for last year or so.
 IP-enabled voice applications now
available which may entice customers
off legacy PBX systems.
 Many of the legacy PBX vendors have
migration strategies to IP systems to
ease transition.
Planning Considerations
 Power for phones (preferably from
closet)
 Backup power (UPSs, generator?)
 Type and availability of jacks
 Feature-rich network switches
 Hardware failover plan
 Robust DHCP, Directory (LDAP)
services
What did we learn?
 Separating voice traffic critical
(restricted VLAN).
 Network switches uplinks must not be
excessively over-subscribed (4:1 to 8:1)
 RSTP (Rapid spanning tree) necessary
for transparent network failover
 There will still be network issues that
affect telephone service
More lessons
 Technology is still young and evolving. So,
think of this less as a project and more as a
lifestyle change.
 3 ‘nines’ uptime for phone sufficient.
 Keep your amortization periods short – 3-5
years for all components.
 Network switches that support PoE save
space, cables, and hence cost. They work
great, too.
Operational lessons
 All work orders are minor variations of the
same basic process.
 One technician on our campus can do all
network and telephone work orders.
 Troubleshooting has become more
standardized. Less test equipment needed.
 Services to remote sites cost effective with no
reduced functionality.
Management & Monitoring
 Still have engineers dedicated to PBX
programming.
 Have been able to combine network
monitoring & configuration software/tools with
telemanagement system rules to reduce
manual device configurations (and errors).
 Network ports get software-configured from
telemanagement system.
Web / Database reports
Cricket perf graphs
Financial Planning
 Built an extensive financial model of the
system.
 Borrowed money to fund upfront equipment
expenses.
 Model facilitates continuous reinvestment/upgrades to the various
components of the system.
 Costs have reduced since initial calculations.
Rate Model
And the ugly?
 Lots of spreadsheets showing who’s saving
money and who’s not.
 Slow deployment leaves lots of room for the
naysayers to exploit.
 Guard against mission creep – as finances
have tightened goal moved from ‘containing’
costs to saving money.
 Trying to keep enough resources on the
project to complete it eventually.
Spreadsheets…
More spreadsheets
And more spreadsheets
More information…
http://www.tc.mtu.edu/voice/voiceservices/voip/index.php