This article originally appeared in the May 2012 issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine.

Colleges and universities realize substantial savings and increased efficiency with SIP trunking and unified communications solutions. Concerns regarding legacy telephone equipment, the geographic distance between campuses, the need for quick scalability and the easy addition of new end users are all addressed with a customized unified communications solution from Broadvox.

In 2011, Broadvox worked in partnership with AudioCodes (News - Alert) and Microsoft to provide a junior college with a comprehensive communications and collaboration solution. The college has a number of campuses statewide, and had been challenged with monthly reoccurring operating costs and the need to improve staff efficiency. The college’s costs for legacy carrier services continued to be substantial, slow to adapt to staffing changes, and extremely difficult to budget.

The costs associated with the legacy TDM service comprised a significant portion of the communications budget and were very unpredictable, making them difficult to budget. The unpredictability in costs was the result of fees associated with moves, adds and changes – often due to instructor and staff mobility and office changes.

In addition to cost management, the ability for instructional staff, students and administration to collaborate was quite limited – requiring physical meetings that were often difficult to schedule and requiring staff to travel between the seven widely-distributed campuses. The inability to collaborate effectively between staff and campuses slowed the decision-making process and was highly inefficient.

With the completion of the migration plan, this junior college completely moved to unified communications, eliminating the legacy carrier services. Retaining local numbers in each of the campus locations, the college now utilizes Broadvox (News - Alert) GO!Local and GO!Anywhere SIP Trunking for all local and long-distance calling. Interoperability and security for the college is accomplished with an array of AudioCodes Mediant 1000 and Mediant 800 E-SBC devices, with at least one device installed at each campus.

After a financial analysis, the college reported an 80 percent reduction of monthly reoccurring telecommunications charges, and has seen continued per-user reduction in communications costs.

By migrating to unified communications and SIP trunking, the college is more efficient, more responsive to student and staff needs, and is better prepared for growth.

David Byrd (News - Alert) is executive vice president of sales and marketing at Broadvox (www.broadvox.com).