Project: Voice over Internet Protocol
Voice over Internet Protocol Project Overview
6/7/2013 – Wave 1 of the project is in full swing. Over half of the buildings in the wave have been surveyed and recommendations are being delivered to the units in those buildings. Wave 1 is targeted for completion in September 2013; with each subsequent wave scheduled to take roughly six months. The planned building assignments for waves 2 – 4 have been posted to the project wiki: https://wikis.utexas.edu/display/itsnt/VoIP+Project+-+Building+Deployment+Status.
IT governance formed a VoIP Task Force in fall of 2010 consisting of representatives from the Cockrell School of Engineering, College of Communication, College of Natural Sciences, College of Liberal Arts, McCombs School of Business, and Information Technology Services. Their charge was to review the ongoing needs for telephony on campus and to determine the best approach to provide this service moving forward. In March of 2012 IT governance endorsed a plan to replace the university’s existing telephone system.
Business Need and Background
Voice over IP (VoIP) was identified in the Strategic IT Advisory Committee report and prioritized by the IT Architecture and Infrastructure Committee (AIC) to be investigated as a future direction for campus telephone services. IT governance determined that VoIP, and changes to the way telephone services are provided, will decrease the cost of providing telephone services while also providing increased flexibility and new features. While the current infrastructure has served campus well for over 25 years, it is time to replace that infrastructure.
Project Description
For the most current information on the various aspects of the project, please visit the VOIP Project wiki.
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See charter for deployment committee: VOIP Project DeploymentCharter
Acquire a new standards‐based Enterprise Class VoIP telephone system.
Distribute operational and cost responsibilities for the telephone system between units and ITS; completing the transition by 2016.
Manage the transition:
- IT governance committee to establish transition schedules
- ITS Common Good funding to provide the planning and labor for transition
- ITS to provide financing options for units to cover de‐central capital conversion costs
- Grandfather existing private telephone systems at their current scale. Additional investments in existing private systems will only be authorized on an exception basis by the Strategic IT Accountability Board. No more future distributed private telephone systems will be accepted.
Adjust rates for the new system based on actual costs of providing telephone services and remove hidden subsidies:
- Provide ITS Common Good funding for institutional copper‐wired phones
- Establish a task force to recommend Building Security System (BACS) maintenance funding options
- Determine which project to incorporate the costs of relocating the institutional copper lines when the Services Building is demolished
