The University of North Carolina at Charlotte Improves Campuswide Communications with Cisco Technology

Wireless Network Helps Campus Meet Needs of Faculty, Staff and Students

SAN JOSE, Calif.- Cisco® today announced that The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, known for its academic excellence, has chosen the Cisco Unified Communications system to meet its campus’s evolving needs.

After a comprehensive selection process that tested products in real-world scenarios, UNC Charlotte chose Cisco to improve its current system. Replacing aging digital PBX architectures with a Cisco intelligent network will unify the university’s communications architecture and allow it to develop and implement integrated communication and collaboration features across the extensive campus.

“We put Cisco products to the test in a real-world environment, and they came through for us. The company’s support and technical expertise demonstrated during the tests were two of the major determining factors in going with a Cisco solution,” said Tom Lamb, UNC Charlotte’s chief technology officer.

UNC Charlotte has selected a broad set of Cisco Unified Communications applications to unify workspaces across the campus. Cisco Unified Communications Manager provides protocol interworking between the originating and the terminating sides of a call. Cisco Unified Mobility Manager helps to enable single-number reach to people with mobile phones or multiple offices. Cisco Unified Presence Software delivers real-time presence information so that a caller can determine when others are available as well as what their preferred communications media are. Cisco Unified Personal Communicator helps to enable instant messaging, video, voice and presence information in a single interface for Windows and Macintosh desktops.

The university also intends to deploy Cisco’s 7921 wireless phone. With its open architecture, the Cisco Unified Communications system will also be able to unify the campus’s legacy messaging system. Together, Cisco Unified Communications system and the Cisco intelligent network create an efficient and effective communication solution for faculty, staff and students.

Phylis Miquel, the education solutions manager for Cisco, said “The decision criterion for UNC Charlotte was a unified communications architecture that met the institution’s existing needs but also provided a flexible, rich collaboration and application platform to meet its expanding needs. The workspace strategy for UNC Charlotte was enhanced by our ability to support and implement Session Initiation Protocol and integration with third-party endpoints and applications.”