What is PennNet Phone?
PennNet Phone is Information Systems & Computing’s
(ISC) new telephone and voice mail service that uses VoIP
(Voice over IP) technology. VoIP converts your voice into
data and transports it over PennNet. Because VoIP is digital,
it offers a host of features and benefits not available with
traditional analog phone service.
Featured with
PennNet Phone is a new integrated voice mail service
and web service. The new web service, PPS,
allows you to manage certain telephone features and voice
mail options anywhere you have access to a web browser.
The new voice mail service enables you to receive your voice
mail messages as an email file attachment. Another option
is to receive notification about new voice mail messages
via email.
Why VoIP Now?
Voice over IP is increasingly becoming a more viable option for voice
services. Technology improvements are reducing the gap in
quality between traditional voice services and VoIP and the
additional services enabled by VoIP as well as the potential
for savings makes this a clear direction for the future.
As we plan for the future, we recognize that much of the
University’s
existing telephone infrastructure consists of cables that
were laid more than 50 years ago. Before the existing telephone
infrastructure requires expensive replacement or repairs,
we want to be prepared to ensure that Penn’s
telephone service continues to be reliable and keeps pace
with new services and features as they become available.
The goal is to deploy a dependable, cost-effective, and easily
supported VoIP service over the next few years.
Bringing VoIP to Penn
To curtail the prohibitive costs
of upgrading Penn's aging telephone infrastructure, ISC Networking & Telecommunications
is exploring ways to integrate telephone services onto our
data network, PennNet. Much of the existing telephone "plant" consists
of cables that were laid more than 50 years ago. To ensure
that telephone service continues to be reliable, ISC launched
a Voice over IP (VoIP) telephone pilot via PennNet
with the hopes of deploying a dependable, cost-effective,
and easily supported service over the next few years - well
before the existing telephone infrastructure needs replacing.
The purpose of the pilot was to obtain valuable feedback concerning
VoIP features and services as well as to understand any implications
for our network before the service was offered to the Penn
community. ISC developed a comprehensive, production-like
pilot program to enable customers to experience all areas
of the new service from billing to reference materials to
support.
The pilot comprised over 800 persons in various departments across
the University and ran from October 2005 to June 2007. The
pilot offered participants the opportunity to evaluate and
migrate to a technology that would include a new voice mail service,
a new telephone set, and a different way of getting support.
To participate in the pilot, schools and department were
asked to provide a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 150 participants
and to meet the following program prerequisites:
- Use a single-line telephone
set. Multiple-line-telephone sets will be supported in the
later stages of the pilot.
- Agree to use the PennNet Phone service. PennNet Phone service
consists of a new voice mail system for accessing and leaving
voice mail messages, a new IP phone, and a different way
of getting telephone support.
- Agree to have their Meridian, Northstar, Eagle, or Extron phone sets
disabled and use a new IP phone although they retain
their same phone number.
- Be comfortable with trying new technology, realizing that VoIP is
an emerging technology that ISC is deploying on a limited
and scaled basis and that not all features and functions may be fully
operational or work as expected.
The pilot was conducted over
four phases to enable ISC N&T to mange project
costs while exploring customer needs. Additionally,
the pilot timeframe allowed the VoIP team to re-evaluate,
respond, and make necessary adjustments to program services,
features, and deliverables in an analytical and controlled
manner as well as determine implications for support
and network traffic.
- Phase 1, October 2005 to February 2006, began the campus
pilot. The main release for Phase 1 was to provide web
services to enable the PennNet Phone customer to manage
their telephone feature settings via a web browser.
- Phase 2, March 2006 to May 2006, provided additional PennNet Phone
features such as account codes, authorization codes, hunt
groups, ring groups, and call park services. Telephony
infrastructure upgrades were also scheduled, however, these
changes were transparent to PennNet Phone users.
- Phase 3, June 2006 to August 2006, focused on preparing the PennNet
Phone service for general availability to faculty and staff
who meet program prerequisites. This phase also included
pilots for soft phone services and voice mail services,
such as caller menus and listen-only mailboxes. Telephony
infrastructure upgrades were also scheduled, however, these
changes were transparent to PennNet Phone users.
- Phase 4, September 2006 to July 2007, offered
full production service to faculty and staff across campus.
ISC continues to develop new functionality for PennNet Phone Service,
voice mail, and PPS and will offer a wider variety
of handsets in the near future. For more information about
VoIP at Penn, contact service-requests@isc.upenn.edu.
Page updated on September 21, 2009
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