Over the summer, the University Police telephone lines were disrupted three times. Northwest is hopeful this will not happen again after switching the campus landlines to Voice over Internet Protocol lines.
The transition to VoIP lines at the University began during the summer of 2024, according to the Northwest’s office of information technology. Director of Infrastructure Services Tim Carlyle said the switch was completed over the summer, making the UPD the last office to make the change.
“It was just trying to get them coordinated, to get the phone numbers released so that we could move them to (Microsoft) Teams,” Carlyle said. “But it was also just trying to coordinate with everybody, trying to work with everybody, making sure that we got it in a timely manner, and then try to do it the middle of semester, or, you know, ‘Hey, sorry, you’re going to be without your phone numbers.’”
By using VoIP lines, the University is able to make and receive phone calls over the internet rather than relying on the landlines it previously had, according to the Federal Communications Commission.
Carlyle said VoIP lines allow faculty and staff to be anywhere they want while making and receiving calls, rather than having to be in their office. He said Microsoft Teams was chosen to be the provider at Northwest.
Source: Bearcat Alert
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“We connect through the internet to Microsoft Teams in the cloud, and then that provides us access to our phone numbers that we had originally, and then text us out to the rest of the world through the phone lines whenever we make a phone call to cell phones or regular phone numbers,” Carlyle said.
University Police Chief Amanda Cullin said the UPD used landlines throughout the summer that were having issues, causing the phone line disruptions. She said during disruptions, the UPD always had a backup plan.
“When our hard line was down, we shared the information with outside law enforcement agencies, as well as send it out to our community on Bearcat Alert,” Cullin said. “Our community was inconvenienced, but it didn’t really impact operations, because once we catch it, we communicate.”
Cullin said since the UPD is now using VoIP, there should not be any more disruptions.
Over the summer, when the phone lines were disrupted, a Bearcat Alert was sent out to students, faculty and staff. Cullin said these messages requested the community to call a specified phone number when contact with the UPD was needed.
She said the VoIP lines will automatically connect to the cell phone backup line, making it unnecessary for a Bearcat Alert to be sent out if there are issues with the phone lines.
“Now that we fully switched over to VoIP, then we shouldn’t have the issues that we had over the summer due to the heat and the excessive rain,” Cullin said.
Carlyle said using VoIP has multiple other benefits as well. This includes allowing voicemails to go to the receiver’s email, as well as adding a call tree to the campus phones.
“We have a list of services now, instead of where they used to have to wait to get a hold of a person and then ask them, ‘Hey, I need to talk to somebody.’” Carlyle said. “Here we actually have a call tree now that you can pick somebody or have one, two, three, four, to get to that office. That’s a benefit to try to help redirect people faster than having to wait for somebody to pick up and try to direct them for them.”
Carlyle said the only downside to using VoIP lines would be if the internet goes down, so would the phones; however, he said this happens rarely.
He said altogether a lot of people are happy about the transition.
“It’s an overall, it’s going to be a plus,” Carlyle said. “I think the biggest one is being able to make phone calls. You’re from your cell phone, your laptop, you could be on the beach, if you wanted to be, and make a call, and nobody would know any different.”