Policy and strategy
Telephone policy and strategy issues.
Scope of service
The central University telephone system covers the vast majority of University buildings. However, there are a few units which it does not cover, the largest one being Accommodation Services.
A small number of Associated Institutes are also covered by the central telephone system.
Voice over Internet Protocol transition
The University is gradually moving from its “traditional” analogue telephone system to a new Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) system. Instead of requiring dedicated telephone wiring, VoIP uses the University’s data network to carry telephone calls. The drivers for this change are:
- The existing analogue system (which is over 20 years old) will become un-maintainable within the next 5-10 years, possibly sooner.
- Maintenance costs for the existing system are very significant, while maintenance costs for the VoIP system are substantially less.
- The line rental costs for analogue system interconnections could be eliminated if VoIP were fully deployed.
- Eliminate the need to maintain analogue telephone wiring in addition to data network wiring.
In order to speed the transition, there is a policy of not investing in the expansion of the analogue telephone network, and taking every opportunity to reduce the size of the analogue estate. This affects requests for new telephone extensions, which will always now be VoIP.
Privacy
Information about phone calls is routinely logged. Currently, only calls from University extensions to external numbers are logged. The information may be used for statistical, billing or other management purposes (e.g. to determine which extension called a particular external number at a particular time). However, calls are not listened to or recorded.
This article was published on Aug 28, 2012