Huffman Trucking Telphony Systems

Running Head: TELEPHONY SYSTEMS EVALUATION

Telephony Systems Evaluation

Huffman Trucking

University of Phoenix

NTC/500 Ð'- Networking Concepts

Instructor: John Stewart

December 23, 2007

Telephony Systems Evaluation

Huffman Trucking

In today's competitive marketplace, organizations must stay sharp and run in a productive and efficient manner. To maintain that competitive edge, the organization must stay current with the most cost-effective technologies, technologies that will grow with the company and its evolving markets. After a quick analysis of the Huffman Trucking Telephony Systems, it is clear that Huffman needs to consider a system-wide upgrade, bringing the overall company into the next generation of voice technology. Huffman Trucking has a unique opportunity to make the next technological leap by moving from individual non-digital, site based PBX, (private branch exchange, a private telephone network used within an enterprise); to a more distributed VoIP (Voice over IP) design (Webopedia, 2007). Moving to VoIP provides an upgrade path for overall systems capabilities and adding everyday user features for Voice Mail, Caller ID, Call Forward, Call Parking, and more.

Huffman Trucking's existing telephony infrastructure as well as their network infrastructure is out of date and seriously behind the latest technological developments. This evaluation will only deal with the existing telephony infrastructure as well as presenting some "cost-effective" alternatives for upgrades. Distributed across four states, the Huffman facilities in each state comprise of office installations and plant installations, with each installation maintaining its own systems and only the Ohio and Missouri (Office/Plant) systems taking advantage of similar designs. The California Office is configured with an older non-digital PBX based system while the California Plant has been upgraded to a Digital VoIP (Voice over IP) system with a tie back to the PBX. The New Jersey Office and Plant are both running on a non-digital PBX system.

Table-1 lists the telephony systems in use at the various Huffman Trucking sites and a brief listing of their operational capabilities.

Facility Telephony System Telephony Features

California - Office PBX Telephone System Intercom

(No Voice Mail)

(No Caller ID)

Tie-Lines to Plant PBX / VoIP

California - Plant Nortel Digital Phone System (VoIP) Caller ID

Voice Mail

Call Forward / Call Park

Conference Call

moreÐ'...

Missouri - Office Avaya Digital Phone System Caller ID

Voice Mail

Call Forward / Call Park

Conference Call

moreÐ'...

Missouri - Plant No Onsite Hardware; Connection to Office via Token-Ring Network. Caller ID

Voice Mail

Call Forward / Call Park

Conference Call

moreÐ'...

New Jersey - Office PBX Telephone System Intercom

(No Voice Mail)

(No Caller ID)

Tie-Lines to Plant PBX

New Jersey - Plant Office PBX Telephone System Intercom

(No Voice Mail)