Near the start of calendar year 2013, Ohio University’s Office of Information Technology hopes to ring in a new campuswide phone system.
The OIT staff plans to test the RFP-labeled Next Generation IP-Based Voice Communications System during the upcoming Fall Semester, a system that will move OU from individual dorm room landlines.
The new system, which utilizes Voice over Internet Protocol technology, will be able to send and receive emails that can be converted to voice. It also can receive voice messages that can then be converted to text. Students and faculty will be able to download a smartphone application or computer software to use the new phone system.
“We even will have the ability of having video communication,” said Brice Bible, OU’s chief information officer. “We could get phones with screens on them to have video conversations. There is a module that we are looking at that could even expand this in the classroom, which would open up a lot of communication opportunities for students and faculty.”
OIT is in the process of fielding proposals to replace the current system and is “very close” to making a selection, Bible added.
“We are in the evaluation process now and have had several vendors list options for us and make bids, but our goal is to make a decision in June,” he said. “We will then have a pilot or test phase, which will expose the campus to it.”
Bible said OIT hasn’t “gotten to the pricing point yet” for the new system.
The current phone system, an Aastra MX-ONE (Ericsson MD110), is 25 years old and was installed in the mid-1980s.
“The company no longer makes that phone system. There is no support for it anymore,” Bible said. “It is time to move on.”
OU’s Information Technology Communications Manager Sean O’Malley said disposal plans for the old system have yet to be determined.
“It (the old phone system) will be salvaged out, and it will go to be used somewhere else,” Bible said.
Ohio University is rolling out the new phone system as a collective state initiative among OU, Bowling Green State University, Shawnee State University and the Ohio Board of Regents.
“I think it will ultimately be the first shared technology service in the state of Ohio,” Bible said. “It is a statewide initiative that OU is the major leader in.”
OU will get pricing discounts through a shared purchase with those different locations, which will save the university more than 5 percent of the cost of the new system.
The current phone lines in the dorm rooms will be removed, and students will be able to rent a phone once the new system is available, Bible added.
“I think the need for a phone system certainly has gone down and has changed; that’s why we are making it optional,” Bible said. “We will maintain a phone line in the dorm rooms from a safety point of view. Finding a location for a person calling 911 from a cellphone is not entirely accurate, which is a concern.”
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