MCC Daily Tribune Archive

Throughout 2006-2007, MCC is updating the college's telecommunications as part of a Capital Improvement Project.  To date, much of the work has been unseen.  During this past winter, new conduit paths were laid, the fiber infrastructure enhanced and new infrastructure equipment installed.  The final phase of this project will be to replace the 1985-vintage ROLM telephones with new state-of-the-art CISCO VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phones.  The phone upgrades began in May 2006 with a test group of about 100 users and will continue until all phones on the Brighton campus are replaced during 2006-2007.  Over the summer, this group has been field testing the phones and participating in user training sessions which review the basic functions and features we already enjoy and also demonstrate how to take advantage of the additional features the new phones offer. 

The next area to receive the VoIP phones will be the classrooms on the Brighton campus. This installation will be completed during the month of August.

Enhancing communication to the classrooms is one major improvement of the telephone upgrade and we will now have the capability of providing timely information to our classroom faculty and students.  These classroom phones will provide a means for fast communication and enable:

-          traditional telephone communication

-          paging one or several classrooms with important information

-          on-screen display (4” x 3”) with text information

-          fast and easy-to-use video conferencing

Another major improvement with the new phone system is how fast messages can be communicated to the Brighton Campus community.  The old ROLM System took 15-20 minutes to alert users that information was being distributed; the new system is instantaneous.  ETS and Public Relations are working as a team to take advantage of this new communication tool.

We will be keeping you informed as the phone upgrades progress throughout the campus and be providing training sessions for using the new VoIP phones.