Essendon Keilor College ends its paper chase with new IP Telephony system

The new system connects each campus wirelessly via radio towers that are located on each site. Telephone calls are transmitted over these towers, then routed through the IP data (computer) network installed on each campus. One of the buildings, located across the road from the main campus, was previously not connected to a phone line at all – this now has a voice service via the IP network.

EKC’s new system, designed and implemented by specialist data, voice and security integrator NetStar Australia, has allowed the school to cut the number of its traditional analogue telephone lines from 27 to 14. Other major cost savings are being realized because the inter-campus calls – which represent about 40% of all calls made at the college – are routed over the data network and not the public telephone network. There are no standard call connection costs for this traffic.

“The time savings for our campus office staff, who previously had to locate teachers to pass on hand-written messages from inter-campus calls, are unbelievable,” said Susan McCulloch, Business Manager, Essendon Keilor College. “Instead of three administration staff answering phones, we now have one centralised receptionist, who can direct calls to the teacher’s in-dial number in the correct staff room and the system handles all the messages.”

EKC is a multi-campus college in the Northern suburbs of Melbourne, with enrolments of about 1700 children in years 7 to 12 and 150 teaching staff. The school’s State Government-provided local area network (LAN) connects its three campuses at Essendon, East Keilor and Niddrie.

“In the staffrooms, we have an application developed by NetStar that is like a virtual switchboard on a PC screen. A teacher’s name will flash to indicate they have a message on the system, so each teacher has personalised voicemail but does not need their own handset. Instead we have one handset per seven teachers,” she said. “This kind of centralised, browser-based message management is cost-effective because it gives us global administration and a common interface across our network.”

The system also fulfills the school’s requirement for a paging system that locates teachers when they are not teaching. Each campus is broken up into zones so if a teacher is out of the classroom the switch can page them in other likely areas such as the staffroom or library.

EKC’s system is based on the Nortel Networks Business Communications Manager (BCM), a converged voice and data solution designed especially for small and medium-sized businesses and organisations with remote branch offices. BCM supports unified messaging, multimedia call centre and wireless e-mobility capabilities.

“Business Communication Manager is ideal for a multi-site, medium-sized organisation like Essendon Keilor College,” said Steve Wood, president, Nortel Networks Australia and New Zealand. “It provides universal Internet access for all connected users and workstations, and its simplified network infrastructure cuts costs by connecting IP phones over a LAN wiring system, seamlessly extending features to multiple sites through IP connectivity and streamlining network management.

Essendon Keilor College is also using 69 Nortel Networks BCM digital handsets, which connect to the standard phone lines and to the IP Telephony network, and five Nortel Networks BCM IP handsets. Though not yet used by EKC, the BCM also offers wireless handsets that would allow teachers to be reached easily when even on playground duty. “The price of the system was right and it offered everything and more than other<

ABOUT NETSTARLOGICALIS

NetstarLogicalis is part of the Logicalis Group, which is a division of Datatec Limited (DTC), a $4.2 billion multi-national Group listed on the AIM market of the LSE and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. NetstarLogicalis offers a complete range of end-to-end solutions for converged data, security and Data Centre infrastructure. NetstarLogicalis’ state-of-the-art network management facilities help customers reduce the cost of managing their infrastructure. Our goal is to help customers better run their business, leveraging our proven networking and Data Centre expertise and experience.

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