IP Telephony Improves Productivity and Lowers Costs
Midwest Municipality
Business Challenge
Known as the "Lilac Village" for the abundance of pink and purple shrubs planted by founder William Plum, the Village of Lombard, Illinois attracts horticultural fans from around the world each May for the annual Lilac Time celebration, a 70-year-old horticultural tradition.
Located 50 miles from Chicago, this scenic village and its 42,000 residents are served from a six-building municipal complex housing town government, police, public works, fire protection and water works. The phone system used by the village was based on aging PBXs that were experiencing frequent failures. The PBXs didn't support features that were deemed critical, such as automated voicemail, caller ID and E-911 support. Two additional PBXs at remote fire stations were incompatible with those at the central village complex, hindering communications.
In addition to the voice network, the data network, based on older switches from a variety of vendors, was no longer meeting the village's needs. Users were experiencing slow application response time, and the network was difficult to manage. To alleviate these problems and to obtain the communication features needed to manage a 250-person organization, village IT Manager Larry McGhinnis chose to migrate to a converged IP voice/data architecture based on Cisco IP Telephony technology.
Solution
Acumen Solutions and Cisco Systems worked together to design and deploy a complete IP Telephony voice solution as well as a new converged voice/data IP network. The voice solution was based on Cisco Call Manager, Unity voicemail, and Cisco IP fixed and wireless phones, as well as Cisco's Emergency Responder, an enhancement to Call Manager that enables emergency agencies to identify the location of 911 callers, even when phones or people move from one location to another.
The new converged network, based on Cisco routers, switches and 802.11g wireless access points, provides seamless connectivity for both fixed and mobile users throughout the village's campus facilities. Security was a major concern for the village. Acumen Solutions deployed Cisco PIX firewalls to protect the village from Internet-based attacks. Cisco Security Agent, a host-based intrusion prevention solution, was installed on key servers to detect and prevent malicious behavior. New Virtual Private Network (VPN) capabilities were deployed to enable secure access by village staff working from home.
One of the village's most unique requirements was the need for public works engineers to move freely between desks when reviewing site or construction plans anywhere in the complex. To accomplish this, Acumen Solutions distributed Cisco wireless LAN phones to the engineers, who are now reachable via their ordinary desk phone numbers regardless of their location within the complex.
Return on Investment
Employees of the village now enjoy vastly improved voice features with their new IP-based phone system. Features such as auto-attendant and call transfer have enhanced user productivity. Staff can access user directories from the screens on their IP phones and can even check their voicemail via the Web.
"Our new IP Telephony system has greatly enhanced our ability to serve the community at a lower cost than our old PBX," said IT Manager Larry McGhinnis. "We estimate that we'll save upwards of $35,000 this year because of reduced operations costs and the consolidation of phone lines that this system has allowed us to accomplish. We're very pleased with the high quality of Acumen Solutions' work on this project."