The Office of Information Technology is serving in a leadership role for several key initiatives of the University of Maryland’s Strategic Plan. Infrastructure initiatives have been identified as priorities since many other initiatives are dependent upon their completion. To this end, the university has begun a phased upgrade of its voice communications system. This endeavor is necessary since the current system has approached the end of its useful life. There is a need to implement a state-of-the art system that will incorporate recent technological advances with a platform upon which to build enhanced applications that make use of leading edge technologies such as wireless, Internet Protocol (IP), messaging, video, and others. The implementation process has begun and will involve a gradual transition over the next year.

The current voice communications system is an Avaya (previously known as AT&T and then Lucent) Definity G2. It was installed in 1990. This system serves nearly 23,000 academic, administrative, and residential users, but it is now at capacity and unable to support the planned growth of the university. The upgrade to an Avaya Definity G3 system will immediately improve the capacity and reliability of communications at the university. In addition, this upgrade will minimize maintenance problems resulting from the vendor's decision to terminate support of the older technology. Networking and Telecommunications Services plans to offer enhanced communications services and features to the university community in the future as a result of the newer, more technically advanced equipment.

The transition to the new system should be transparent for most users, since the primary changes will involve only the replacement of central equipment which controls the communications infrastructure. Some changes may affect services temporarily, but every effort will be made to minimize any inconveniences. Networking and Telecommunications Services staff will coordinate transition plans with Department Telecommunications Representatives (DTRs) to address specific requirements.

For additional information visit http://www.oit.umd.edu/nts/vsupgrade.html.

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