For most employees, the Lab's recently completed transition to a new, state-of-the-art telephone system is about as exciting as the new phone on their desks. And that's fine with the folks in the Telephone Services Department.

The year-long project, in which all of the Lab's central phone equipment, outlying hardware, connections, services and 5,000 telephones were replaced or switched over, was carried out with only minimal disruptions and is as easy to use as the old system.

"We considered proposals from five of the world's leading telecommunications vendors, but eventually decided to go with an upgrade from the current vendor," said Linda Smith, head of the Networking and Telecommunications Department (NTD). "Not only did their plan cost about half what the others were proposing, but it meant that employees wouldn't need any new training or orientation to use the new system."

Making the right choice is important, Smith said, as the average lifespan for phone systems is 10 years. The recently replaced system was originally installed in 1988 and upgrades kept it reasonably up-to-date. In fact, many employees were still using phones that arrived with that system. But with technical support due to end at the close of 2002, NTD had to do something.

Planning for the next step actually began in 1998, when NTD began surveying employees about what they liked about the current system, as well as what they wished they could have in the future. With this data, NTD began talking to telecommunications firms.

"When we started seeing what kind of technology was out there, we made it a point not to talk with the sales people, but to instead meet with the development staff," said Cindy Wood, senior telephony engineer. "One of our key areas of interest was the converging of voice and data services."

After reviewing what the industry had to offer, the Lab signed a contract last year for the $2.2 million upgrade. Early on, NTD made a decision to continue operating the existing system as the new one was deployed.

"Usually when you do an upgrade of this magnitude, you need to bring the existing system down. But we realized that would have too large of an impact on the Lab, so we operated two redundant systems to make the migration easier," Smith said.

The new Oakland Scientific Facility in downtown Oakland was the first building to be switched, followed by the offices in downtown Berkeley. Between February and October, the rest of the Lab was moved to the new system. In addition to replacing the 5,000 desk phones, NTD switched over the 5,000 interconnects and transferred about 700 incoming lines providing long-distance services, off-site extension, microwave links, paging, teleconferencing, and more. The Lab's voice mail system, remote access services, automatic call distribution systems, billing systems and videoconference bridges also had to be changed over.

The new system also provides some hidden benefits, such as reducing electrical use and cooling by 50 percent in main equipment areas and freeing up space in underground infrastructure areas. Some other benefits will become apparent later, as new services enabled by the system are rolled out. Watch Computing and Communications Services News for updates.