May 2006 — Features
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One Server Fits All
E-mail, telephone, chat, instant messaging - so many communication technologies, yet we still can't track each other down. A single, centralizing unit is the solution.
BY NOW, the benefits of deploying a communications system that runs over
the Internet Protocol are well documented. Sending voice over the Internet, a process
commonly known as VoIP, has proven to save big bucks on long distance, make voice
mail more accessible, and enable users to answer their phones from anywhere. As if
that isn’t good enough, the technology also makes adding and transferring extensions
around a district easy. VoIP has become so popular that this magazine saw fit recently
to highlight a handful of best practices (see December 2005, “VoIP to the Rescue”).
Since then, a select number of districts have embraced wireless VoIP as well.
Despite its growing popularity, VoIP has generated a certain amount of frustration. Even though communications tools have proliferated, users’ increasing mobility has made the users difficult to reach on the first try. In a January report titled “Unified Communication Application: Uses and Benefits,” analysts from Sage Research found that the average organization with IP communications utilizes more than six separate communications devices and more than five communications applications. In the K-12 world, this means parents are becoming all too familiar with teacher voice mails. Not surprisingly, those parents aren’t happy.
In response, some school districts are expanding their IP communications to include a whole host of other technologies in addition to VoIP. Dubbed unified communications, this approach links together a variety of communications applications and runs them over the Internet, providing parents and users alike with virtually limitless ways to get in touch. As indicated by case studies from academic organizations such as Farmington Municipal Schools (NM), the Santa Clara County Office of Education (CA), and the School District of Cheltenham Township (PA), unifying communications has improved communication across the board.
“Taken individually, technologies such as VoIP and calendaring are pretty useful already,” says Charles Thacker, Farmington CTO. “But when you add them all together, you get a system that’s cheaper to operate, and from a functionality standpoint, makes all of the technologies before it seem like a waste of time.”
What Makes It Unified?
No discussion about unified communications can begin without a definition. Here, however, lies a problem. When asked to describe unified communications, vendors and analysts both struggle to come up with a uniform answer. It’s much more than VoIP, they say, but far less than exhaustive, network-level applications such as course or network management. It contains calendaring functions, secure chat, and videoconferencing. In a nutshell, unified communications comprises all applications built on an IP communications system, including unified messaging, conferencing, collaboration, enterprise instant messaging, and softphones, to name only a few.
