Cisco Silver Partner ISC Brings IP Communications to Rural School District

August 5, 2005

By Cindy McDowell, News@Cisco

Getting someone to service an outdated phone system can be difficult; in a rural area, it can be almost impossible. Chris Coffelt, Director of Instructional Technology for Garfield School District No. Re-2 in Rifle, Colorado was ready to make a change.

"Our phone vendor got rid of much of their support in our area, and it was eventually reduced to just one person," Coffelt says. "We had no dedicated support people. It was frustrating to spend a lot of money on a service contract and be unable to get timely service."

With the district constructing a new building for support services, Coffelt turned to Information Systems Consulting (ISC) account manager Matt Hammer for guidance in bringing new technology to the district.

"Our old system didn't have many functions that are considered basic today, such as caller ID," says Coffelt. "Matt showed us how IP Communications and a converged voice and data network would provide powerful features and enable us to handle administrative tasks on our own-and get better use out of our existing bandwidth."

With help from ISC, Coffelt showed the school superintendent and school board how much money could be saved by deploying IP Communications across the district, and how the system would ultimately pay for itself in five to seven years.

ISC is a Cisco® Silver Certified Partner holding specializations in IP Telephony and Security. It has headquarters in Casper, Wyoming, and offices and personnel in Colorado and Utah. ISC is committed to providing the highest possible level of customer service to its clients, and was named by Cisco as the 2004 US Commercial Partner of the Year. The company has a growing list of customers in the government and K-12 education sectors, and is beginning to provide commercial deployments for banking and financial customers.

"There really is no 'next generation' of PBX-IP telephony has become an accepted technology," says Hammer. "The paradigm used to be signing big contracts for PBX maintenance and administration, but with IP, companies can self-administer their networks and realize huge cost savings. Cisco has been the leader in the migration to IP telephony, and it's been tremendous for end users."

In addition to the outdated PBX phone system, the Garfield School District No. Re-2 suffered from an inadequate cable infrastructure and T1 lines with statically assigned bandwidth to edge sites.

"The district was only getting about one-third of its bandwidth on the data side because of static," says Hammer. "We felt it was important to get them centralized service, while using as much of their existing investments as possible to keep down costs."

To accomplish this, ISC recommended a Cisco IP Telephony solution, including a redundant Cisco CallManager setup, a single Cisco Unity® server, and a new router and switches. ISC designed and deployed a Cisco technology-based IP Communications solution that would integrate with the district's PBX system over the course of one year, in preparation for a total PBX replacement throughout the district's eight schools and administration facilities.

The new building for support services and a new elementary school were the first to implement the new converged network and IP communications solution. Next was the renovated district office.

"The deployment at the new buildings took place during the school year," says Hammer. "For other buildings, we set everything up, and planned to make the transition in the summer, when school was not in session. We ran PBX and IP over the same line, in preparation for shutting down the PBX system and bringing up the IP phones." ISC designed this phased approach so that as dollars became available, additional schools would be converted to IP. Today, the entire school district runs completely on a voice over IP (VoIP) system.

As the IP phones were deployed, Hammer's team provided instructions on the basic phone features and how to set up voicemail. There were few problems, and the users were able to immediately use the new phones. According to Coffelt, the greatest benefits of the IP Communications solution are the financial savings the district is realizing, and the ability to manage the network himself.

"As a network administrator, I am excited that we can configure and make changes to the new phones in less time than it used to take to make a service call," Coffelt says. "Before, a move, add, or change would have literally taken weeks and involved a service charge. Now, I can do it myself in five minutes." The district is currently accessing full bandwidth, which allows for fast, easy communication between all of its schools.

According to Hammer, IP telephony is becoming an accepted technology, especially in some of the larger school districts.

"We've deployed a Cisco IP phone in every classroom and at every administrative desk at Garfield School District No. RE -2.," he says. "IP technology is becoming more mainstream every day. We're showing our customers the huge cost savings in self-administering IP telephony. Cisco has been in routing and IP telephony since the beginning and is considered the leader in this market."

Cindy McDowell is a freelance journalist located in Santa Cruz, CA.