A year ago, of Ottawa, Illinois-based Centre runs an analog phone system powered by T-1 and a 10/100 Ethernet network independent data would not support an IP telephony system and much less battery high bandwidth medical applications are becoming increasingly necessary, says Curt Sesto, director of facilities management, construction and electronics to the center.
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Now, Ottawa Regional has installed a fiber ring 10G bps at its campus of 31 acres and is in the midst of changing all of its IP phones with the ability to enable unified communications (UC) has said. The ring, which is owned and operated by the Ottawa Regional eliminates a series of point to point AT & T, T-1 lines connecting the eight buildings on campus, he says.
The aging of 14 years, Siemens-ROLM plant has been replaced by a VoIP service outsourced to Siemens, which is based on Siemens gear at Level 3 Communications colocation facilities. For $ 40 per user per month, the integrator / outsourcing company PosTrack provides a fiber link and backup T-1 to the VoIP servers, including all costs of telephone usage, Sesto said.
When he arrived last December, the running order of the director general was to get a new phone system immediately. “I had been on their radar for a couple of years,” he says. One goal was to get rid of the estimated $ 28,000 per year maintenance cost of the exchanges, for which it was becoming increasingly difficult to find parts as they grow. “They could go toe-in any time,” he says.
Sesto unprotected Siemens, Cisco and Avaya VoIP systems. The Siemens system was being pushed by PosTrack, Siemens also supplied medical equipment for the Health of Ottawa. He was the only bidder who urged an evaluation of data networks as the first step in the process of moving to VoIP, he says. He liked that and also the fact that Siemens is offering a hosted service. Would take on the task of network monitoring and maintenance, freeing up two to three full-time, you can focus on the implementation of electronic medical records, another priority for the center.
Became the first step in improving any Cisco 10/100 Ethernet network that had no power over Ethernet, except to support Cisco wireless access points, Sesto said. Design considerations include a fiber ring to improve connections from building to building. After an offer of less than $ 1,000,000 Juniper, Cisco offer for $ 350. 000, Juniper won the deal, he says.
PosTrack 3 miles of fiber installed between buildings on the campus of Ottawa Health and reconnected all the buildings with 400,000 feet of Category 6 cable, replacing the old cables that was half of Cat 5 and Cat half 3.
Voice traffic will run on the same network. The voice system is based on Siemens OpenScape servers located in two different places in Chicago for redundancy in case of a downturn. Fiber loops the loop on the campus to the servers in a fiber optic 10 Gbps constructed and managed by PosTrack. This is a 30-mile connection on the LAN cable television Medicacom the running state of Illinois Century Network is available to hospitals at 3 points of presence.
The link supports 10G bps, but the medical center uses only 15Mbps. Of that amount, 10 Mbps is dedicated to voice and has a high quality service. The other is 5 Mbps of data and has a lower service quality, he says. Whenever the Ottawa Health needs more bandwidth, you can buy in pieces of 5 Mbps that can quickly turn changing the configuration of the infrastructure, he says.
If something goes wrong, Ottawa regional calls a help desk by Siemens. If the problem requires a work-site technicians are deployed PosTrack, Sesto said. Not sure if the new phone system costs less than the last. The center has negotiated a flat monthly fee by the number of buildings dedicated circuits and the airlines, maintenance and repairs, which says.Beyond the fixed monthly fee, the health center is buying VoIP phones.
The new phone system is expandable to 15 medical office buildings that are out of the University of Ottawa, Sesto said. The old switchboard could not handle, so each had its own little Avaya PBX is out of service as the center of VoIP service delivery reaches every building.
The VoIP system has been the center of a voicemail system that integrates with Outlook for users to receive an e-mail notification of voice messages. They system also can call one phone when you call an extension. So an individual can configure the system to ring the office phone, but the fixed and mobile phone. features of UC in the hospital system include fax e-mails. The is considering the use of video in the future to facilitate the meetings and is looking for asset tracking devices that can connect to the assets of the hospital. So a transmitter on a piece of medical equipment allows the network to triangulate on the device based on its interaction with wireless networks in buildings.
The review of the network was more extensive than the general director had in mind when he ordered a new phone system, but is better suited for high bandwidth medical applications of the network must support, Sesto said. “The old network was like having bicycle tires in an Indy car,” he says.