IPcelerate.com

Customer: City of Tyler

About the Customer

Located 90 miles east of Dallas, the City of Tyler is considered an economic hub of east Texas due to its strengths in health care, education and retail services. With a population of over 100,000, Tyler is home to three hospitals, twenty-six parks, nine golf courses, a nationally recognized zoo and symphony, and three institutions of higher education including the University of Texas at Tyler. The City employs over 800 people in more than 35 different buildings and locations.

Initial Expectations from VoIP

The City of Tyler transitioned to VoIP in late 2008, when it became necessary to upgrade from their outdated Legacy system. They selected VoIP primarily because of its simplicity, the ability to converge voice and data, and the additional features available. The City also wanted to reduce their telephony costs including long distance fees.

Addressing Primary Business Challenges

Once the transition to VoIP was completed, the City needed to find solutions to the communications challenge of notifying employees of important messages and emergency notifications. They needed a paging system that could be zoned by department and could also offer a phone-by-phone option. They had recently experienced a computer virus attack that infected seven City computers and were forced to use email as a means of notifying employees of a corrupt message in the system. With a robust paging system, they would have been able to send an audible message to each IP phone, thus eliminating the risk of unread emails. They selected IPcelerate’s IPsession server because it could manage paging, plus offered many more features they knew they would use in the future.

IPcelerate Solutions

The first IPsession solution deployed by the City of Tyler was Paging. Zone Paging was established so pages could be sent to specific departments, depending on the content of the message, and they liked the capability of sending pages to specific IP phones. In addition to Paging, the City also implemented Intercom Whisper to notify employees on an active phone call of an incoming call from the mayor or city manager. With Intercom Whisper, an audible announcement is made which only the employee can hear, alerting them to an incoming call. This solution allowed for better customer service within the City offices, as well as an increase in productivity with the reduction of “phone tag” played between staff members.

With over 500 IP phone users, the City has plans to implement many more of the imbedded solutions within the IPsession server, including Dial Out, i.Album and Conferencing with remote users.

New Telephony Experience

VoIP has given the City of Tyler control over their phone system and associated operational functions. They have more flexibility for system growth and employee movement within the infrastructure, and have greater visibility into their own phone usage. With VoIP and IPcelerate, the City can now make more educated decisions on future telephony investments and cost-saving strategies, resulting in a more fiscally efficient government.

Next Steps/Higher Expectations

With only a short period of time since the completion of their VoIP deployment, the City of Tyler has just begun to implement their desired IPcelerate solutions. Next steps include adding i.Album, which will allow them to display pictures and advertisements on their IP phones; Dial Out, which will allow them to interface IPsession with existing databases for automatic dial-out programs for such tasks as notifying businesses of expiring licenses and alerting employees to weather related closures; and Conferencing, which will allow remote employees to join in conference calls and on-site meetings. The City is also interested in adding the IPstudio server for call recording capabilities in various departments throughout the City.