Ohio State's VoIP Deployment Key Topic at the CIC IT Networking Meeting in November 12/22/08
The CIC IT Networking group held its autumn meeting at The Ohio State University on November 13 and 14, 2008.
The CIC (Committee on Institutional Cooperation), a consortium of the Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago, was founded 50 years ago to leverage financial and intellectual resources. The CIC’s IT Networking Group is one of a number of peer groups and committees formed under the larger CIC organization.
Bob Corbin, former Director of OIT’s Telecommunications & Networking, currently serving as The Office of the CIO’s Director of Customer Experience, views the open collaboration between the CIC schools as the Networking Group’s most valuable asset. “We share almost everything: Contract information, successes, failures, information on organizational change at different universities, as well as how the national environment affects our work. We look at things like what’s going on in regulatory space related to everything from leading-edge technology to dorm telephone service.”
Recently a portion of the CIC IT Networking Group’s discussion has focused on organizational change and how the IT divisions at the universities are realigning themselves to address budget cuts and new technology. Another ongoing discussion weighs the value of centralized information-technology management at universities versus distributed IT management. Of course, especially during times of economic stress, sustainable funding is a major issue all around. Correspondingly, discussions about outsourcing everything from help desks to phone services to desktop support seem to be ongoing. “These discussions seem to roll around every three to five years,” Corbin added. “Perhaps this is due to administrative changes, the economy, or funding cycles.”
The current president of the IT Networking Group, Anne Phillips, manager of Michigan State University’s Telecom Services Department, chaired the group’s meetings in Columbus. She noted that “the CIC IT Networking [Group] has been interested in the convergence of voice and data over wireless for sometime.”
The group meets quarterly, usually in Chicago at Northwestern University, but offsite meetings are held from time to time. Columbus was chosen about a year ago because of the cutting-edge VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) deployment at Ohio State. At the November meeting, Telephone Switch Engineer Ted Revard and Switch Technician David Hamilton demonstrated OSU’s work with VoIP telephones, addressing such issues as wired versus wireless VoIP devices, specific protocols which have been tested, and the phone models being deployed.
The CIC IT Networking Group will next convene in Chicago in spring 2009.
