Following its recent adoption of business VoIP (voice over internet protocol), the University of Nottingham has announced that it has also deployed a sophisticated audio conferencing facility using internet protocol (IP) telephony technology.
The university, which depends on audio conferencing to facilitate collaboration between its three campuses in Nottingham, China and Malaysia, says that it chose a host audio conferencing solution – akin to the type of remote service provided by a business VoIP provider – to save on capital outlay.
Other benefits of the new audio conferencing facility reported by the university include:
• the capacity for all participants to use local numbers when dialling in to the service
• the ability to allocate accounts to new users quickly and easily so that participation can commence immediately
• a clear, and easy to understand billing process which assists university management with its monitoring of the service
• the capacity for uniform customisation of the interface for users at each of the three campuses in order to give the facility a welcoming and familiar ‘brand image’ each time the service is accessed
The university says that its capacity for sophisticated international audio conferencing also helps it in its efforts to reduce unnecessary travel; both from the point of view of minimising negative environmental impact, and in helping to keep down the university’s travel costs.
It has also highlighted the benefits of being able to rely on the continuity of high customer service levels which, it says, are an integral component of the hosted IP telephony solution it has adopted.
Commenting on the audio conferencing implementation, the university’s telecoms development officer, Tim Robbins, said its success would help the university ‘carry on promoting conferencing and collaboration.’
The university is also understood to regard its IP telephony implementation as a first step in the direction of unified communications, whereby different media are accessed via a common interface.
