Avaya, a vendor of business communications software, systems and services, has announced the completion an upgrade to the University of Sheffield's voice network as part of a wider IT expansion and upgrade program planned by the university.

The upgrade, to Avaya's (News - Alert) Communications Manager 5.0, is designed to give the university "a more resilient, scalable IP based phone system, while still protecting the investment made in PBX (News - Alert) over the last decade." It gives the university the capacity to increase the number of voice and data connections by 20 percent, and to move to a converged network, which university officials say is in their long term IT objectives.

The university's 10,000 voice connections have moved to the new system with the result that "jobs such as adding a new voice extension or moving phones, which previously would have taken a couple of hours, now take a matter of minutes," university officials say.

Chris Barrow, product marketing manager, Avaya EMEA, said his company has "a long-standing relationship with the university, and we look forward to building on that in the future."

Mark Franklin, Voice and Data Support Manager, University of Sheffield, said that while the old system "had served us well, we recognized the need for an upgrade. With the advent of unified communications and the university's own expansion plans we needed a solid foundation upon which we could build future functionality whilst still protecting our existing investment. What's more we needed something that would integrate with our existing setup."

Franklin says the upgraded phone system will provide better service to students during busy times, such as clearing and enrollment: "The call center functionality built into Communications Manger enables us to take an 'all hands on deck' approach during busy times. Calls can easily be answered, and correctly routed by a team of people, helping us to process student enquiries far more speedily than would have been possible in the past when, all too often, high call volumes resulted in bottle necks and long call waiting times." 

TMC President Rich Tehrani (News - Alert), blogged that, "companies in the IP communications space have never been so laser-focused on ROI as they are today. Avaya, for example, makes sure to mention the cost savings benefits of IP communications every chance they get. According to David Giangano President of Global Channel for Nectar (News - Alert) Services, today's corporations need his company to allow them to best-in-breed Avaya features on a hosted basis." 

And what's not to like about hosted solutions, Tehrani asks: "I've written endlessly about how companies are embracing SaaS (News - Alert) solutions in this economy as such solutions allow maximal productivity benefits afforded by the latest technology without the CAPEX previously associated with such solutions."