IP Telephony Solutions:

  7960 EnviroXtreme!

  Case Studies:

  Client - Case Study

  PEFCU - Case Study

Before implementing this solution, CTI engineers met with the customer to discuss the need for a converged voice and data network that provided centralized management and cost effective centralized ACD (Automated Call Distribution) for all sites. The implementation had to be reliable, robust, and extensible. The Cisco AVVID architecture along with Interactive Intelligence CIC (Customer Interaction Center) was chosen as the platform. This combination provides the baseline infrastructure that enables a scalable, robust converged network.

The corporate site has approximately 150 employees. The Cisco Catalyst 4006 was chosen to provide Ethernet connectivity and power to IP phones. The 4006 also provides Fast Ethernet to servers and PCs and Gigabit Ethernet to selected servers. Two Cisco CallManager servers were deployed in a redundant configuration to provide call processing for all sites. Two Interactive Intelligence CIC ACD servers were deployed in a redundant configuration to provide ACD, IVR (Interactive Voice Response), and unified messaging (voicemail). Because all remote sites are connected via a WAN (Wide Area Network), call center agents can be located anywhere throughout the network and participate in the call groups.

Faxing is critical to business operations so 2 fax servers were deployed at the corporate site in a redundant, load balancing configuration. Cisco 5350 voice gateways were chosen to provide PRI fax lines to the fax servers. This gateway supports the T.38 fax relay standard which provides reliable faxing over an IP network. All sites have dedicated fax numbers along with dedicated extensions for each phone. Both fax and voice traverse the same PRI lines at each site. Using the T.38 protocol enables all remote sites to have dedicated fax numbers for each employee while the fax servers are centrally located for administration.

Many of the larger sites include a wireless network that supports both wireless IP phones and wireless PCs.

Fiber was run from the corporate site to a large remote site located in the same city. This large remote site has approximately 150 employees, 75 of which are dedicated call center agents. A Cisco Catalyst 4006 provides Ethernet connectivity and power to IP phones, as well as Ethernet connectivity to PCs.

There is 1 medium sized remote site with approximately 75 employees 7 smaller remote sites with 20 to 40 employees each. The Cisco Catalyst 3524-PWR switch provides Ethernet and power to IP phones and Ethernet to PCs. All sites have IP phones and local PSTN access via PRI and analog trunks. The remote sites connect to the corporate site via ATM, Frame Relay, or dedicated point to point T1 lines. SRST (Survivable Remote Site Telephony) is used at each remote site to ensure the IP phones will continue to work in the event of a WAN connectivity loss.

QoS (Quality of Service) is set up throughout the LAN and WAN networks to ensure that voice packets get priority over data packets. QoS is an end-to-end design issue and it must be maintained throughout the network to minimize packet loss, delay, and jitter. Proper QoS setup ensures toll quality voice at each of the locations.