A rock solid digital telephony solution for Stirling

A digital transformation journey

BT is switching the UK’s landlines from analogue to digital in 2027. When it does, every voice call will be routed over internet protocol (IP) and it makes sense for institutions to be ready ahead of time to make sure their operations keep running smoothly.

After many years of working with us at Jisc on innovative solutions, the University of Stirling opted to do so again and implement our session border controller service for its switch to digital telephony. It also wanted to support its 18,000+ students and 1,800 staff by adding Microsoft Teams, making it easier for them to meet, collaborate and share online.

Session border controller is a fully managed service that uses session initiation protocol (SIP) trunk endpoints from market-leading vendors Oracle and Gamma to provide great connectivity and direct routing via a cloudhosted voice gateway.

Our data centres host two powerful Oracle session border controller devices to provide a multi-tenanted solution to members and customers by direct routing across IP networks.

This is a highly secure gateway between private networks and allows Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony, such as Microsoft Teams, to enter and operate across the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). It also supports integration with some legacy private branch exchange (PBX) solutions.

Easy migration

The service offers better value than existing telecommunications contracts and we manage the transition to simplify the experience for our customers’ in-house IT and infrastructure teams.

In 2023, the university trialled the session border controller proof-of-concept, then initiated its phased plan for issuing staff with headsets and migrating them from the legacy Mitel system to Microsoft Teams Phone.

Jim McKee, the university’s head of infrastructure, has reported that the feedback was very positive:

"Obviously, a few ‘how do I do that?’ issues were reported to our information centre, but in conversation, people would comment that they really liked using Teams telephony and that it is ‘better’.

"It is a robust, one-stop solution and it is proving to be rock solid."

Flexible working

Implementing session border controller has given university staff more options for flexible working. With headsets for their PCs and laptops they can work independently on- or offsite, including at home, while in the university’s offices, reception areas and meeting rooms there are Yealink handsets to bring telephone systems bang up to date.

Well before clearing starts in 2024, call centre staff will have migrated fully and the legacy phone system will be retired.

Benefits

This is the latest of a series of digital transformation projects and Jim says it will enable still more, such as 5G.

It is reducing telephony costs and simplifying admin because multiple services – including ongoing, fully managed maintenance – are rolled into a single, simple monthly invoice.

It is also highly flexible and scalable, so new channels can be added easily when requirements change or when extra capacity is needed, as it often is during clearing, for example.