telecommunications dec 8, 2009. telecommunications watitis | strengthening collaboration| december...

Telecommunications

Dec 8, 2009

WatITis | Strengthening Collaboration| December 8, 2009 |Telecommunications Overview

Telecommunications

Everything you wanted to know about Telephone Services but were afraid to ask.

http://www.clipartguide.com/_pages/1552-0809-1515-4009.html


Telecommunications

Who are we?

What exactly do we do?

Tips on how to save money?

Where are we going?

Telecommunications


Our team is made up of the following 10

people

1 – manager(Joe Allen)

2 - phone guys(Bruce Bender & Doug Herter)


Telecommunications

1 –administration and switchboard supervisor

(Liz Doede)

2 –switchboard attendants (Rhonda Lantz & Sheila Fell)


Telecommunications

1 - wireless support person / backup support(Kathleen Ebrahimi)

1 – backup support person (admin & switchboard)(Carrie-Anne Hunter)

1 – phone analyst (Ron Schmidt)

1 – co-op student (Andy Vopni)


Telecommunications Core Responsibilities

# 1 priority

Ensuring the phones on campus are working properly

24/7

365 days a year


Telecommunications # 1 priority

Ensuring the phones work : 24/7, 365 days a year

• 52 buildings + 5 under construction• 3 campuses (Waterloo, Cambridge,

Kitchener) plus ? (Stratford, Huntsville, ?)• 6,500 phones (IP, digital and analog)

and counting• 3,600 voice mail boxes• onsite PBX • 5,000 speech recognition entries• +230 Bell lines


Telecommunications Digital versus analog

- ‘ANALOG’ is the process of taking an audio or video signal (in most cases, the human voice) and translating it into electronic pulses.

- ‘DIGITAL’ on the other hand is breaking the signal into a binary format where the audio or video data is represented by a series of "1"s and "0"s.

- On campus we have about 100 analog phones and 5,000 digital


Telecommunications VOIP technology

VOIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol

- This simply means that instead of using separate lines for the phone, they share the lines with the computers. When doing this it opens up a number of ways to integrate your computer with your phone. All new phones on

campus are VOIP.

- There are about 700 VOIP phones on campus

Notes:

1. Regular phones send electricity over the phone line. When switching to a VOIP phone, we must add power over the line.

2. PBX has backup power, VOIP phone systems do not


Telecommunications

We monitor the switchboard from 8:30 am - 4:30 pm

Monday – Friday with at least 2 attendants at all times.


Telecommunications Switchboard

• Typically during the day, we get over 400 calls per hour during peak times

• Switchboard attendants use software that displays both names and departments in order to quickly find what they are looking for

• The directories are in sync with WatIAM, however there are timing problems when people start working before they are setup in WatIAM



Successful implementation of ALL moves,

adds and changes to over 6500 (and counting) phones on campus

Approximately 200 work orders per month


Telecommunications Moves, adds and changes

• receive work orders• schedule work, order new equipment• remove and /or install new phones

with desired programming• if required, add voicemail• If required, update speech recognition

system• update telephone administration

system for billing and university online directories



Administer all the billing for phones on campus

• We pay the bills and re-bill all areas on campus

• Invoices are posted on U of W’s website at

http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/as/phone/tele_billing.html

Note: We want to be the central area for paying bills. We will ensure the bills get paid on time and are reviewed appropriately.




TelecommunicationsVendors

Telephone services deals with the following

companies on a regular basis:

Other companies (or products of) we work occasionally with are:


Telecommunications

Monthly Billing process

Various vendors send electronic invoices to U of W

Liz and her team update all work orders

The end result is a monthly invoice which details all services provides by TS. This is available online.

TS uses approximately 10 servers


Telecommunications

5. Administering and helping co-ordinate issues with the approximately 650 wireless devices (blackberries and cell phones) being used on campus

Note: One issue we struggle with is what support model works best at U of W?


Telecommunications Wireless support

Telephone Services is responsible for:

• Ordering new blackberries and upgrades

• Assisting client services who are involved with technical problems, upgrades and initially setting up a new device

• Along with client services, providing training

• Interfacing with the vendor and carriers on behalf of the client

• Answering questions about service and rates

• Paying the carriers on behalf of the client and internally re-billing the clients

• Analyzing phone usage to help clients choose the most efficient plans

• When necessary negotiating with carriers to provide the best possible rates. We have contracts with both Bell and Rogers.

Here is a link on our website: http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/cs/bb/bb-howto.html

http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/cs/bb/bb-howto.html


Telecommunications Wireless – online access to Invoices

Invoices from Rogers are available at:

https://winonline.rogers.com

Invoices from Bell are available at:

http://interaction.bell.ca

https://winonline.rogers.com/

http://interaction.bell.ca/


Telecommunications Wireless – saving money

Here are some ways to save $ using your wireless device:

1. Check your bill every month. There have been many instances where customers were charged by mistake for services they didn’t order and / or use. One particular scam is to charge outrageous fees for text messages.

Note: Both Bell and Rogers now offer preferred pricing with pooling. These prices can be found on our website. We will be holding an employee lunch and learn soon to review the new Rogers rates.

2. Review what plan you are on compared to what other plans are offered. Choose a plan that fits your needs

3. Be careful of ROAMING charges when you travel. Plan ahead and choose a packaged plan ahead of time.



Telecommunications Wireless – saving money

ways to save $ using your wireless device:

4. Use a calling card. It’s very cheap compared to wireless plans. A little inconvenient but incredibly cheaper.

5. Find ‘hot spots’ with wireless internet access. These allow emails to be sent for ‘FREE’.

6. Be careful when downloading and using the Internet. Make sure you have a plan with sufficient data. Otherwise the extra fees are expensive!!


Telecommunications Rogers – new pricing

Corporate Plan Details Cost* per Month

250 anytime local minutes +Unlimited Evenings + Weekends (6pm -

8am)

(each user contributes 250 min each to total UW pool)

$19.00

Blackberry BIS Data Plans$25 – 500MB/MTH

$30 – 1GB/MTH

Blackberry BES Data Plans4MB/MTH7MB/MTH1GB/MTH

$25.00$30.00

$25.00$30.40$36.00

System Access Fee (SAF) $6.95

911 $0.50

US LD Calls made from Canada to US

Canada LDCalls made from Canada to Canada

$0.15

$0.10

BASE TOTAL COST For Voice-only users $26.45

Features:

•Call Display (INCLUDED)•Basic Voicemail (INCLUDED)•Call Forwarding (INCLUDED)•Call Waiting (INCLUDED)•Conference Calling (INCLUDED)•Pooling Voice (INCLUDED)•Unlimited Evening + Weekends (INCLUDED)

•Company Calling (INCLUDED) (unlimited local calling between UW Rogers users)

•Unlimited Incoming Text Messages (INCLUDED)


Telecommunications

6. We support over 3600 voicemail boxes on

campus. This is a free service to the campus from IST.

Note: Voicemail can be customised by YOU. There is a self service component that allows you to set your own parameters.



Telecommunications Voicemail

3600 voice mailboxes on campus‘My CallPilot’ allows individuals to

customize their own settings

http://mycallpilot.uwaterloo.ca/mycallpilot

See link:

For example:

• getting an email when you have a phone message

• Setting up ‘groups’ to send emails to

CallPilot Notification

From: [email protected]: Nov 27, 2009 5:30:01 PMTo: [email protected]_____________________________________

You have a voice message from John Doe [12345]



mailto:[email protected]




Telecommunications Voicemail – My CallPilot



Telecommunications

7. We support ‘phone trees for various

areas on campus. These phone trees improve efficiency and reduce incoming calls.

Note: Calls can be routed to another extension, voicemail, another phone tree or a message



Telecommunications

Phone ‘trees’

Approximately 25 areas on campus use phone treesAllows incoming calls to be screened and routed before going to

an individual or voicemail boxFor example

Incoming call

Dept A ? Dept B ? Dept C ?

Person A ? Person B ? Voicemail?



Telecommunications

8. We manage the automated attendant

speech recognition system that is used to locate an extension by simply saying the person’s name

• Voice recognition must be in sync with WatIAM

• TS must record each individual’s name• People with the same name are

differentiated by the departments they work in

• It is possible to create ‘phone trees’ for this. For example saying ‘cell phones’, then saying a person’s name. This is currently not being used.



Telecommunications

9. We support the ‘white pages and online

‘department directory’

It’s important that Telephone directories are in line with WatIAM.

Sometimes there are timing issues between when a person starts at U of W and when they are in WatIAM.

The recent migration from UWDir to WatIAM has highlighted some areas that need further investigation.

Telephone directory information is used for 911 emergency response.


Telecommunications Online directories



Telecommunications

10. We support U of W’s campus emergency notification plan.

We manage the systems that are used to :

a) send text messages to all cell phones entered on MyHRinfo and Quest

b) send messages to all voice mailboxes on campus

c) create a message for a dedicated ‘Infoline’ . This line can receive 100’s of calls simultaneously and would be used in the event of an emergency for information

Note: we have the ability to send voice messages en masse but use this only for surveys at this time


Telecommunications

11. We support the campus ‘911’ system

The 911 system is :

a) a service from Bell that ensures when ‘911’ is dialled, that the PSAP know what building on campus the call originated from and what the phone number of Police Services is

b) a separate system for police services to know the room and building where the call originated



Telecommunications 911 calling on campus

Have you ever wondered how the police know who made the 911 call when it comes from somewhere in a large campus?When a call is made, it goes to the PSAP where they are

responsible for dispatching emergency services.

PSAP - stands for Public Safety Answering Point.

In order for the PSAP to know where a call was made on campus, TS must tell them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:911dispatchcenter.jpg


Telecommunications 911 calling on campus

When a call is made on campus it goes to Police services AND the PSAP.

TS sends updates to the police daily with Building and room information for each phone

TS sends phone and building information to the PSAP plus the phone number of Police Services

When a 911 call is made, police services receive a pop up screen with the building and room of the call. The PSAP immediately know the building but not the room. If the caller cannot tell them the room, they immediately call Police Services to get that information.



Telecommunications

12. We manage and help administer the following:• Conference calls, Calling cards• Yellow pages


Telecommunications

When we have time...

We investigate new technologies to improve service and reduce costs.

For example – fax machines


Telecommunications Fax lines and machines

Fax usage has dropped considerably over the last few years. However, on campus, there are still approximately 150 Bell lines used for fax machines

Each Bell line costs between $50 and $70 each month.

TS has been charging $30 or $38 for these lines.

Recently Bell has notified us that they will be raising the cost of these lines approximately $10 per line per month.

In order to avoid incurring additional charges, TS would like to ask each department to review the use of these lines and cancel them if possible


Telecommunications Fax lines recommendations

Fax alternatives:

1. Eliminate the fax machine (and line) and use email with a scanner2. Replace Bell line with a ‘direct dial’ number (approx $25 per month)

• One issue is that you must dial ‘6’ first and your phone number will change

3. Use one designated fax machines rather than many. 4. TS is investigating a new phone number for incoming faxes. Faxes sent to

this number will be intercepted by TS and forwarded to the recipient via email. This would be a free service.

5. Using a FAX server on campus. This is a program that links faxes to your email system. This is already being used in some areas on campus but can be used much more.

Note: Any comments or feedback would be appreciated. Send to [email protected]




Telecommunications

Other technologies we are looking at:

• Converting the entire campus to Voice over Internet (VOIP)

Using the computer network to make a phone call

• Unified communications (UC)

Merging all systems of communication into one system

(for example – Outlook)



Telecommunications

Questions ?


telecommunications dec 8, 2009. telecommunications watitis | strengthening collaboration| december...

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