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CENIC Offers Low-Cost VoIP
Last Updated on Thursday, 10 May 2012 Written by Janis Cortese Tuesday, 08 May 2012
CENIC is now offering low-cost CalREN VoIP communications. For the California Community Colleges, these high-value services are eligible for a 50 percent CTF discount.
The past decade has been spent in laying the infrastructure of advanced networks, and now that those networks have become an established part of the landscape for California’s K-20 research and education communities, the timing for a unified communications solution couldn’t be better.
CalREN consists of a CENIC-operated backbone to which schools and other institutions in all 58 of California's counties connect via leased circuits obtained from telecom carriers or fiber-optic cable.
Advanced fiber-optic networks like CalREN, which currently serves the state’s community colleges, can now be used to help research and education institutions meet the challenges of the new century and increase service to their faculty, students and staff while adjusting to a lean budgetary landscape.
Just as CENIC was able to aggregate demand across the K-20 community in order to build CalREN itself, it is doing the same in order to offer cost-effective cloud and cloud-related services over the network, with one example being the new CalREN Voice over IP (VoIP) Services. CalREN VoIP Services provide institutions with an easy to manage, low-cost way to enter the modern world of Unified Communications and next-generation voice solutions.
The CalREN VoIP integrated communications tool set supports fixed-mobile convergence across multiple devices, softphones and smartphone apps. Additionally, the integrated communications tool set supports text messaging, instant messaging, presence, videoconferencing, web collaboration and webinar hosting without having to purchase, install, operate and maintain additional infrastructure.
CalREN VoIP Services features bundled flat-rate monthly pricing according to a simple cost structure, and the service includes CENIC-managed campus-based session border controllers (SBCs), CENIC-provisioned Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunks, voicemail and 911 service, unlimited local and domestic long-distance calling and business-class feature sets priced at $6.90/month (for Basic lines) and $7.90/month (for Premium lines), plus applicable federal and state taxes and fees.
For community colleges, CalREN VoIP Services are eligible for a 50 percent CTF discounts on the above pricing.
Current service rollouts are taking place at Sonoma State University, San Francisco State University, UC Santa Cruz, Caltech and others. Robust, diverse network connectivity is a must for participating institutions, together with a failover to the public-switched telephone network (PSTN).
While CENIC ultimately seeks to ensure that all institutions can benefit from CalREN VoIP Services, the current focus is on institutions with at least a thousand lines. Interested representatives of colleges and college districts with large numbers of lines are invited to contact CENIC to learn more about how CalREN VoIP Services can enable them to meet their mission of serving all who can benefit from higher education while reducing operational costs and preparing for the future of unified communications.
To learn how your institution can transition to CalREN VoIP Services, please contact CENIC at (714) 220-3450 or write to CENIC at voip@cenic.org.<>
Janis Cortese is Manager of Communications and Publicity for CENIC.