[VoiceOps] Any higher-ed contacts? for EDUCAUSE talk

[Jon Young]

Mark,
I co-lead a monthly call for the EDUCAUSE communications technology
community group and specialize in consulting to higher-ed (we're trusted
advisors, not integrators or resellers). The commtech CG has actively
discussed the topics you have listed in our monthly call, slack and mailing
list. You may find it helpful to look through the archives of all of those.
If I can be of specific help, please let me know. I'll also be at the
EDUCAUSE annual.
See
https://connect.educause.edu/community-home?communitykey=f664a717-d09a-4efe-9427-fd4a98c2dc2d
for our community group.

A few generalized answers to your questions:
-- Are campus users using the phone systems differently now than they did a
few years ago? Yes, most campuses have seen a continued fall-off in
telephone usage. For the typical end-user, that brings usage to near zero.

-- Does every new staff or faculty member want a phone number? Few, if any
institutions have taken away DIDs if they previously granted them. It's a
hot topic in the community with many thinking we are at an inflection point
that we could potentially stop providing telephony (e.g., PSTN connectivity
and PBX licenses) to a large swath of the community but there are none I
know of that have tried it. Politics rule higher-ed, not ROI

-- Who are the heaviest users of the voice system? Departments who would
likely benefit from a call center - even if that don't have an actual ACD
today. Admissions, financial aid, the help desk, advancement (the people
who ask for donations), athletics/performance ticketing, health clinics...
etc).

-- Have you recently removed any parts of the phone system? (E.g., Dorm
room phones, blue-light emergency phones, desk phones for staff in favor of
MS Teams, etc.) Dorm room phone went away long ago almost everywhere, many
of reduced (not eliminated) desk sets during the pandemic, zoom/teams/slack
rule the communications channels but the phone system is still there. Few
have reduced blue light phones for non-technical reasons but they have
reduced other analog for building entrance phones (think the box on the
dorm entrance) and cut back on faxes. Analog is still large for elevators,
fire alarms, alarm circuits and the like and has created major challenges
with many hosted providers trying to stay away from analog, the LECs
dropping POTS or anything that genuinely resembles it, NFPA requiring a
long run time for elevator phones and the new ASME code requiring visual
communications in elevators.

I could go on at long length about this (and have) but hopefully, this
gives you a bit more higher-ed info.

Regards,
Jon Young
Vantage Technology Consulting Group

On Tue, Sep 13, 2022 at 1:53 PM Mark Lindsey via VoiceOps <
voiceops at voiceops.org> wrote:

> Is anyone on here with good connections with Higher Education (Colleges,
> Universities, Professional Schools)?  I'm doing a presentation at EDUCAUSE,
> the Higher-Ed IT Conference, on the changing uses of Voice communications
> in that space. I'd love to chat briefly to see how folks are using the
> phone system at High-Ed institutions and how they see that changing.
>
> -- Are campus users using the phone systems differently now than they did
> a few years ago?
>
> -- Does every new staff or faculty member want a phone number?
>
> -- Who are the heaviest users of the voice system?
>
> -- Have you recently removed any parts of the phone system? (E.g., Dorm
> room phones, blue-light emergency phones, desk phones for staff in favor of
> MS Teams, etc.)
>
> I'd appreciate any pointers.
>
>
> *Mark R Lindsey | SMTS *ecg.co *|** +1-229-316-0013 **|** mark at ecg.co
> <mark at ecg.co>*
> _______________________________________________
> VoiceOps mailing list
> VoiceOps at voiceops.org
> https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
>
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