Organization: Mugla University
Location: Mugla, Turkey
Users: 14,000 students, 1,300 faculty and staff
Market Segment:Education
Applications: Unified messaging, auto-attendants, voice mail, call forwarding, conference calling, computer/telephony integration, interactive voice response, call detail reporting, account codes, pcXset™ software
The Challenge
Mugla University is one of the jewels of Turkey's state-run university system. In less than 15 years, the university has evolved from a vocational school with just 1,128 students to a research and teaching center enrolling 14,000-plus students in programs ranging from architecture to aquaculture. This explosive growth is captured by the university's motto—"Young, Dynamic, Progressive"—and driven by the mission of enhancing Turkey's prosperity through cultural, scientific, and technological development.
To sustain this goal, Mugla University must provide its staff and students with a world-class communications infrastructure. In 2002, the school took a giant step in this direction by deploying a campus-wide 3Com® Gigabit Ethernet network. However, while this data network was primed for the future, its Nortel PBX telephone system was mired in the past. The legacy system was at capacity, preventing the university from providing all of its employees with their own extensions and requiring costly outside contractors to perform simple moves/adds/changes. In addition, the phones lacked all but the most basic call handling features, hindering communication throughout the campus community. Faculty members were even barred from placing their own outgoing calls because the university could not track and bill them accurately.
To address these problems, Mugla University sought an easy-to-manage phone system with advanced call management functions and abundant room for future growth.
Why 3Com
In addition to streamlining telephone communication, Mugla University wanted to integrate sophisticated data capabilities into its telephone services — for example, allowing students to retrieve exam results by phone. It soon realized that IP telephony was the only practical, affordable way to deliver this level of functionality. Using an IP-based system, the university could deploy new converged applications like unified messaging, phantom mailboxes, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), call detail reporting, and web-attendant call handling to improve staff productivity and communication.
Although the school's VARs, Servus and EVOIP, presented bids from Cisco, Mitel, and Alcatel, Mugla University ultimately chose a 3Com IP telephony system based on its previous experience with 3Com products and 3Com's proven experience with IP telephony. In addition, the 3Com IP telephony solution's standards-based interfaces enable it to integrate seamlessly with the university's existing 3Com data infrastructure, providing remarkably easy deployment and maintenance at a low total cost of ownership.
The 3Com® solution consists of the following products:
"Thanks to 3Com, we were able to pioneer the first pure IP telephony solution in Turkey's higher education system," said Professor Dr. Sener Oktik, President, Mugla University. "The secure, converged solution gives us the sophisticated features, simple management, and scalability we need in a phone system and also leverages our previous IT investment, enabling us to deliver corporate-class phone services to every desktop easily and cost-effectively."
The Benefits
Using its 3Com secure, converged network, Mugla University can now leverage all of the cost and performance advantages converged networking has to offer. In addition to saving $3,000 a year in maintenance fees by combining telephone and data traffic in a single infrastructure, the university now enjoys enhanced communications capabilities befitting its status as a leading academic institution
Call management features such as automated attendants and call forwarding streamline the university's day-to-day operations by directing calls swiftly to their proper destination. The university has also integrated 3Com Desktop Call Assistant software with Microsoft Outlook, turning employees' computers into powerful communication tools. Instead of fumbling through a phone book, users simply drag and drop phone numbers from web pages and text documents or connect to any number in the university's online directory at the click of a mouse. They can also see missed calls at a glance, guaranteeing that no message goes unanswered. In addition, an IVR system allows Mugla University's students to call a specific extension and speak or press their student ID number for fast, automatic access to exam scores, billing data, and other information that previously required them to talk to a staff member.
What's more, Mugla University now has more than enough available extensions to provide every employee with an individual phone number and voice mailbox for faster, more efficient communication. Faculty members without offices now have their own phantom mailboxes, keeping them in touch with staff and students alike. Administrators rely on unified messaging to receive voice mail in their email box, speeding responses to important messages, while 3Com pcXset™ software turns their laptops into phone extensions when they're on the road, ensuring they can always be reached.
Located at the university's network operations center, the 3Com SuperStack 3 NBX system supports 780 IP phones throughout the campus-wide Gigabit Ethernet fiber LAN. NBX Phone Power Modules provide power over Ethernet cabling, minimizing the need to run additional wiring.
The NBX system's web-based administration tool, NBX NetSet™ , allows Mugla University to manage its own moves/adds/changes simply and at no extra charge. Notably, the ability of the NBX NetSet tool to log all incoming and outgoing calls has freed the school to let its employees manage their own phone use while preventing abuse of resources. "We created a Java-based program to manage, approve, and report on call traffic based on the NBX solution's raw data," IT Director Osman Keles explained. "As a result, we can grant each faculty member a certain number of minutes per month and automatically deduct any overages from their salary."
The 3Com IP telephony solution is supported by a 3Com data infrastructure designed to support audio, video, voice, and data simultaneously. Powerful 3Com Switch 4070 and legacy Switch 4007 core switches power the campus-wide Gigabit Ethernet backbone, while intelligent SuperStack 3 Switch 4400s with built-in Quality of Service (QoS) deliver crystal-clear phone service and reliable connections to desktops at Fast Ethernet speed. To manage its systems, the university 3Com Network Director, management software, enabling administrators to easily monitor and control sophisticated data/telephony networks.
"A leading university demands leading-edge communication capabilities, and that's just what 3Com provided with the NBX IP Telephony Solution," Dr. Oktik said. "It's more than a phone system—it's a productivity solution for the 21st century that enhances our ability to educate."
