24-Site Organization Serving 13 School Districts Streamlines with Cisco Unified Communications

August 15, 2006

Intermediate School District (ISD) 287 of Plymouth, Minnesota, was created by 13 area school districts to provide educational services and programs that complement and support their own programs, such as administration and special education. It meets the diverse and changing needs of the 110,000 students in its member districts through cooperatively delivered, high-quality, cost-effective services.

With 24 sites located throughout the metropolitan area, and anticipating a new building and further expansion in the coming months, ISD 287 needed to consider its phone situation. It had an aging phone system in place at the district service center that needed to be replaced. A newly purchased and remodeled special education site would also need a new phone system. With each of the organization's more than two dozen sites having their own, separate phone system, it was often difficult to locate people and nearly impossible to disseminate information quickly in case of an emergency.

Mark Case, director of business services for ISD 287, thought that, rather than purchasing more individual phone systems, it made sense to install a totally integrated network system. He felt a converged network with VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) communications technology would address all of the district's communication issues, but he was unsure if it was affordable for the district.

"We are a service center, and our revenue comes from payment from our member districts, so cost is always a factor," he says. "We met with several local system integrators and carefully considered cost and criteria such as long-term support."

Case chose to work with Edina, Minnesota-based Phenomenal Networks, Inc., a Cisco® Premier Certified Partner with several Cisco specializations including IP communications, wireless, security, and advanced technology. Phenomenal Networks provided him with information that answered his questions and supported the request for proposal (RFP) in detail. He compared Cisco Unified Communications from Phenomenal Networks with alternatives, and found that it would provide the necessary network capability, unify all district sites under one communications system, and provide advanced features at a price competitive with a standard private branch exchange (PBX) solution.

"Mark and his team put out a RFP that clearly stated ISD 287's requirements," says Dave Shepherdson, president of Phenomenal Networks. "They were looking for specific benefits, and we presented a Cisco Unified Communications system that would serve all their needs today and many years into the future."

Phenomenol Networks has designed and implemented several large, successful deployments of Cisco converged network technology that included complex voice, video and data networks. Shepherdson attributes his company's success to its focus on three specific areas: IP communications technology, wireless, and security.

"We like to think of ourselves as the very best in our area in those three disciplines," says Shepherdson. "We work closely with our clients to understand what they need from a business perspective and what their business processes and return on investment (ROI) expectations are, and then we deploy the right technology for them to achieve their goals."

For ISD 287, Phenomenal Networks recommended Cisco Unified Communications to replace their existing PBX solutions and provide a basis for the expanded services they wanted to add in the future. The solution included Cisco Unified CallManager call-processing software, Cisco Unity messaging, a Cisco Media Convergence Server for voice, video, and data, a Cisco Catalyst® 3760 Series Switch, and Cisco Unified IP Phones.

The deployment started with two sites: the district service center and the new special education building. With just a month before the initial deployment, the Phenomenal Networks team preconfigured and tested the system in its lab to help ensure that it would perform optimally after deployment.

The main data center for the district now holds the entire communication system including Cisco Unified CallManager, Cisco Unity, and enhanced 911 emergency call support with Cisco Emergency Responder.

"There is quite a bit of infrastructure to this deployment," says Shepherdson. "At each location we will have a Cisco voice gateway, and from there it goes to switches and to the phones." The first two deployments included 210 Cisco Unified IP Phones at the district's service center and 84 phones at the new building. Phenomenal Networks arranged training for all employees on the new phones.

"Change of this nature can sometimes be difficult for people," says Shepherdson. "It is like using a new computer application-you train people and help them feel familiar with it." He found the employees were enthusiastic about the multiple new features of the phone system such as the corporate directory and unified messaging.

The next deployment planned is for a new two-story building, and the solution will be pushed out to the rest of the district's sites in the coming months.

While ISD 287 employees are enjoying the new communications features, Case and the IT staff are enjoying quick and easy employee moves, adds, and changes.

"Moves, adds, and changes were getting costly for us, plus they pulled staff away from other IT projects," says Case. "We also spent a lot of time just trying to keep the old system going as we were always on the verge of losing phone communications. With Cisco Unified Communications, the IT staff is freed up to concentrate on more strategic projects that better serve our members."

Shepherdson and the staff at Phenomenal Networks have seen the company's revenue double in the last year due to its focus on what it considers to be the three fastest growing areas in technology for business: IP communications technology, wireless infrastructure, and security.

"We have identified these as the areas that businesses really want to address over the next couple of years," says Shepherdson. "We made a big commitment as a company a couple of years ago about where we thought the market was going. Investing in a partnership with Cisco has been very rewarding for Phenomenal Networks and our customers. We have had some terrific projects to work on with really fantastic people."