[November 24, 2004]

3Com Brings VoIP to the Cowboys

BY JOHANNE TORRES

VoIP has reached the sports industry thanks to 3Com (quote - news - alert). The now major league VoIP–enabler 3Com just announced it scored a deal with the Dallas Cowboys to provide their management and retail team with IP telephony solutions.

"3Com augments our IT strategy of providing voice and data across our enterprise networks enabling the Cowboys to seamlessly add phones and data connections in support of training camp, and implement call centers to support ticket sales, suite sales, merchandise catalog sales and Internet catalog sales while reducing data acquisition and communication costs," said Jerry Jones, Jr., chief sales and marketing officer for the Dallas Cowboys, about the new agreement.

According to the new deal, the team management will be using 3Com’s VoIP (define - news - alert)-powered telecom system for all of its business-critical voice services. The team is experiencing a growing demand for Cowboys-branded products sold through its Web site and retail locations. 3Com will implement its SuperStack 3 NBX IP Telephony Solution and the 3Com eXchange Call Center Solution. With these system components in place, 3Com leveraged the Dallas Cowboys’ wide area network (WAN) into a scalable, enterprise-wide phone infrastructure, enabling it to easily provide voice and data to the entire enterprise.

"Our entire organization, including coaches, merchandising, sales, marketing, administrative and executive personnel, now has the function-rich telephony technology needed to succeed both on and off the field. Our highly scalable voice and call center solutions permit us to grow our merchandising operations while sustaining the highest quality of customer service. 3Com solutions are easy to manage and reduce our communications cost by routing calls over our WAN rather than the costlier public phone system," added Jones.

The Irving, Texas-based Cowboys management team encountered a need to replace their phone system since their retail business started to grow. The team now retails a growing line of clothing and products—ranging from sports apparel for men, women and children to the Dallas Cowboys Weekly newspaper publication, a newsletter for fans. The organization said it had to equip its merchandising warehouse with additional telephones to fulfill orders and support a 15-seat call center that handles customer service calls. According to the team, its legacy private branch exchange (PBX) platform, however, lacked the scalability to support more handsets without substantial investment.

The Cowboys' new multi-site deployment features a network of 3Com SuperStack 3 NBX devices and more than 350 3Com IP phones at Texas Stadium, where it plays its home games, at Valley Ranch, where the team practices and coaches and staff have offices, and at the Cowboys' merchandising warehouse networked via a 3Com IP router network. The implementation is scalable up to 1,500 users, so it can easily grow to meet the team's IP telephony needs well into the future.

"3Com's call center solution is an ideal complement to our 3Com NBX systems because they all scale so simply and affordably," said Jones. "Like our phone platforms, it's easy to operate, reducing cost of ownership, and its many capabilities will allow us to manage customer relationships more efficiently."

The team also integrated the 3Com Guardian maintenance service for comprehensive on-site support; helping to ensure business-critical voice services are always available. "Our 3Com systems have proven to be a cost effective integral business tool," added Jones. "When we first deployed our 3Com IP phones, 3Com provided technical support during the NFL draft to make sure our coaching staff and executives could communicate with our representatives in New York. Everything worked perfectly."

This announcement follows 3Com’s recent partnership with VIA Technologies, Inc. Both companies announced that they entered into a patent license agreement that grants VIA rights under certain 3Com patents. The agreement covered the licensing of specified 10/100 Ethernet controller semiconductors developed and sold by VIA and its subsidiaries.

Dallas Cowboys
www.dallascowboys.com

3Com Corporation
www.3com.com/voip