Burlington rides the path to convergence. (Trends).

Burlington, MA, located approximately 13 miles outside Boston, recently upgraded its telecommunications infrastructure, adding voice over IP (VoIP) capabilities and applications to maintain its corporate lure and boast its town motto, "Where technology goes to work."

Burlington decided on a converged VoIP network from Siemens that supports the same features and twice the number of lines as the Centrex system it replaced. For its distributed architecture, city officials selected the Siemens Hicom 300 H next-generation communications platform, 12 Siemens HiPath HG 3800 shelves and VoIP capabilities for smaller locations. In all, the network links city officials in Town Hall with 26 buildings, including six schools, and the police and fire departments.

The path Burlington decided to take toward IP convergence is growing more and more crowded. The Phillips Group predicts that 90% of enterprises with multiple locations will start switching to IP systems for voice over the next five years, and according to Synergy Research, the IP PBX market is expected to grow to $3.9 billion in revenue by 2005. With this mass migration comes an emphasis on return on investment (ROI) for the new systems.

The cost of the HiPath system was nearly $900,000, yet Jim Round, Burlington's director of IT, expects it to pay for itself in approximately two years. City officials estimate that the 10-year ROI will be nearly 600%.

All the buildings are linked together over a fiber network installed by MediaOne (now AT&T), and each is provided with voicemail and voice-processing capabilities through Siemens' voice-mail and interactive-voice-response (IVR) applications. These applications have played a significant role in the local school district, where each classroom now has its own telephone. Even when calls are not answered directly by teachers, parents can still reach them and teachers can easily return their calls during breaks. Not only does the system route to personal mailboxes, but to such services as homework or announcement lines.

"Occasionally, when a serious snow or ice storm hits the New England area, parents want to know whether to send their children to school," says Round. "Now, with the IVR offering, school officials can update the announcement function to report any update the parents may need."

With the installation of the voice-mail system, Burlington has been able to relieve administrative personnel from the hours spent answering and directing telephone calls. The 30 saved hours each week enable the staff to focus on the more mission-critical issues in the town. In addition, the emergency 911 network now has an enhanced caller-identification system that pinpoints the exact location of a 911 caller.

At half the cost of a Centrex system, Burlington's network includes 800 Siemens digital telephones, but was built for a capacity of 1,500 lines. This investment offers a practical path to convergence that will allow the town to complete its transition to IP at a pace it can dictate.

The network has been running since February 2002 without a single major problem. "It has been hassle-free," says Larry Rittenberg, assistant county administrator. "The fact that we haven't had to think about it is indicative of how pleased we have been with our decision."

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RELATED ARTICLE: Short take.

"High-end business data customers need and demand stable connections from their data service provider. But it's not surprising that they are more concerned about the reputation of the company providing service, and whether it will be technically sound and financially viable in the months and years to come"--Steve Kirkeby senior director of telecommunications for J.D. Power and Associates.

RELATED ARTICLE: Events.

[check] InfoSec World, March 10-14, at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort, Orlando, FL, features exhibits and conference sessions designed to aid attendees in securing their wired and wireless networks www.misti.com

[check] The Dallas Convention Center in the site for the NSCA 2003 Systems Integration Expo. March 11-15, where 500 technology-without-borders exhibits will be highlighted including audio, video, security/ life safety, telecom, date networking, www.nscaexpo.org

[check] Co-sponsored by IEEE Communications Society on March 12 in the Sarnoff Symposium 2003 in Ewing, NJ, dealing with advances in wired and wireless communications. www.sarnoffsymposium.org

Diamond is a freelance technology writer in Tucson, AZ.