Open source
VoIP was the answer to American Fiber Systems (AFS)'s growing
communications problem.
According to Bill Ciminelli, vice president of network
development and services, AFS -- a provider of metropolitan
fibre-optic network infrastructures and wholesale transport
services for carriers and large enterprises -- entered a big growth
phase, and communications among an increasingly geographically
dispersed workforce became noticeably more difficult.
 | | | | | "We needed a system that would
support the users, rather than the users adapting to the
system."
Bill Ciminellli
Vice president of network development and servicesAmerican Fiber
Systems, Inc. |
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With more mobile and remote workers, the old system of individual
small business plans for the home workers and too many numbers for
the road warriors no longer worked efficiently. AFS wanted an
easier way for its employees to communicate, both internally and
externally.
Straddling two positions that include being the direct report
for the IT department, Ciminelli has the final say in
decision-making processes. As the leading force in the move to get
the entire company under one communications system, Ciminelli had
to keep in mind the economic constraints that affect a young
enterprise.
After investigating a number of options, Ciminelli found that
the economic and control advantages of utilizing an open source
IP PBX represented the best fit for this 90-strong company.
Further research found that Digium's Asterisk best matched AFS's
needs and offered enough flexibility for any future growth at the
company.
Upon making the decision to use Asterisk, Ciminelli consulted
with third-party vendors to find the best solution for combining
the existing IP network and the new Asterisk IP PBX he would be
installing. Further discussion convinced him that Adomo, a voice
messaging and communications solutions provider, would supply the
best solution to fit AFS's needs.
Adomo's recent announcement of its successful integration
between Asterisk and Microsoft Exchange highlighted the needs
Ciminelli was looking to fill at AFS.
"Asterisk IP-PBX customers now have Adomo to seamlessly
consolidate their companies' voice messaging and management with
Microsoft Outlook," said Stephen Manetta, vice president of sales
and marketing of DigiNex, a service provider of Asterisk.
In addition to wanting all employees on the same communications
network, including remote and home workers, AFS also wanted a
unified communications solution that featured one access point to
messages -- whether they were voice, email, text or another format
-- ease of communications among geographically dispersed employees,
and other benefits of unified communications.
The decision-making process went rather smoothly, but the actual
implementation did not go quite so well, Ciminelli said. Though he
and his team had done a network analysis before beginning the
implementation, he now encourages other companies to listen to the
recent buzz on performing in-depth analyses that will find the
problems before full installation.
"I second and third the necessity of IT doing due diligence on
the backbone," he said. "We needed to have sorted out some of the
QoS issues on the backbone better before beginning
implementation."
A pilot group was also used to test out how well the migration
to the Asterisk/Adomo combined system would work and how the AFS
employees would use the new system. Ciminelli opted to use this
test group to save the entire workforce the time and effort of
utilizing a new phone system while the old one continued with
everyday routines. In addition, Ciminelli said, he chose this
course to avoid making the employees into guinea pigs when their
time would be better spent focusing on work.
Once the implementation was complete, Ciminelli found things
worked nearly as expected. The mobile workers, road warriors and
remote workers enjoyed the unified communications features, such as
find me/follow me, and found them useful. Workers who were
predominantly in the main offices in Rochester, NY, and Atlanta had
easier communication with employees outside the main offices. When
implementation was complete, the company saw the cost savings it
had anticipated.
"Adomo especially impacts our mobile users, who previously had
to separately manage messages on laptops, office computers, office
phones and cell phones," Ciminelli said. "With the addition of
Adomo, the four messaging points have been collapsed into one, with
the email inbox serving as the single repository for all
messages."
By finding the right system to fill the needs of the company,
AFS found a system that works for everyone. "We needed a system
that would support the users," Ciminelli said, "rather than the
users adapting to the system."