March 6, 2012
The university has been experiencing telephone issues due to being only part of the way through a transition from conventional telephone service to Voice over IP (VoIP) service.
The main goal in moving to all VoIP is to reduce the escalating cost of phone service; a cost that has become untenable given reduced state support and other financial stresses. The old system was installed in 1996 and keeping it going is expensive and challenging. The transition is being accomplished incrementally, again due to constrained resources.
Unfortunately the latest stage in the transition has engendered an unacceptable level of unreliability. Our vendor, Avaya, is a global leader in telecommunications and usually performs at a high level. The issue at Mason was at first new to them, but now other customers in transition are reporting similar issues. Avaya has implemented measures to keep a constant watch on our telephone traffic and has assigned expert engineers to the problem.
Here at Mason we have come up with a workaround that enables us to bring service back quickly when the system starts to misbehave (30 minutes vs. 18 hours). Last week, for example, we had two service failures, but total outage was less than an hour.
You may have noticed that not everyone is experiencing the same problems.The problems are specific to the particular system being used. When looping between the two systems occurs:
- VoIP users have no issues calling other VoIP users. However, they can experience difficulty in calling people who are still on the old system or in calling off campus. Their voice mail may not be accessible. VoIP users are located in all the new buildings and most of the buildings renovated over the past few years.
- Old system users have no issues in calling off campus, or calling other users on the old system, or in getting their voice mail. However, they can experience difficulty in calling the VoIP users. Old system users are located in Mason Hall and other buildings that have not been renovated.
We realize how frustrating this is for the university community. We are in daily communication with Avaya and are convinced that they understand the seriousness of the problem and that they have tasked senior engineers to work on resolution.
We will keep you informed as new information is received.