Cloud Phone Solutions Modernize Communications in Higher Ed

Today, she notes, Alexandria Tech is running its phones on Cisco’s cloud-based Webex Calling platform. It piloted and soft-launched the system in early 2024, starting with the IT team, and then proceeded from department to department until it had transitioned the entire school community to the new phones.

Leuthardt’s change of heart was rooted in her recent professional experience with cloud systems, she says, but it also came from her research on the latest unified communications technologies.

“The more I looked into it, it was clear to me that cloud phones had come a long way,” she says.

Price was a top driver at first. Alexandria Tech is the fiscal agent for Distance Minnesota, a program that provides call center services and other support for students in the state who are enrolled in online courses. Leuthardt knew that moving to the cloud would streamline the college’s IT infrastructure and potentially lead to significant cost savings.

RELATED: Three cost-saving advantages of a cloud-based phone system.

“To maintain the system that we had wasn’t going to be easy,” she explains, “so we looked at that and the value of what we’d be getting, and that really helped us make our decision.”

Their new platform works with both physical desk phones and softphones installed on users’ computers. Cellphones and other mobile devices can also run the platform via the Webex mobile app.

Leuthardt says she’s heard from several instructors who like that the system allows them to send and receive mobile calls without sharing their personal numbers. She’s also received feedback from employees who say they appreciate the desk space they’ve gained since retiring their traditional phones.

“People seemed to get comfortable with it really quickly, and I don’t think they miss the way things were,” Leuthardt says, adding that she feels similarly about the technology. The school’s original on-premises system had 12 servers and “was a lot to manage,” she explains. “With this, it’s better because I’m in one place. I just log in to a portal and everything is there.”

Doing More with Cloud Collaboration Without Increasing Spending

As colleges and universities continue to move applications and data to the cloud, many have come to the same conclusion as Alexandria Tech and are parting with their on-premises phone systems as well.

Mark Cianca, a principal with Huron Consulting, explains that schools are doing so for several reasons. First, because cloud phones run over the internet and do away with traditional analog lines, the systems require less hardware and are relatively easy to set up. Maintenance is also simplified, as most back-end work is the responsibility of service providers, “and that frees up your staff in IT to devote more time to other things,” he says.

Cianca, who previously served as vice president and CIO at the University of California, notes two other key advantages to cloud phone systems. First, in a competitive marketplace, cloud companies are incentivized to continually improve their offerings with new and emerging technologies. Second, the cloud makes it easy for campus IT departments to scale their systems up or down.

“If my vendor comes out with a new AI tool, in most cases that’s going to be baked into my subscription,” he explains. “And with the cloud, I just buy the capacity I need. I don’t have to worry about rightsizing or investing in new equipment or expensive support resources.”

Click the banner to get an even deeper look at Alexandria Tech’s move to cloud-based calling.

The scalability, efficiency and cost-effectiveness of cloud phone systems all played roles in Matthew Hoffman’s decision to embrace the technology at his institution.

As CIO at Pennsylvania Highlands Community College, Hoffman moved the school to a RingCentral solution when COVID-19 lockdowns rendered the legacy phone infrastructure inadequate.

“We deployed it pretty quickly,” he recalls. “With everything else happening at the time, I remember it being a seamless transition.”

Today, PHCC instructors and staff can make and receive incoming calls on any device, including physical phones on their desks. Hoffman says the institution pays by the line, and his team can establish new extensions in a matter of minutes.

He also likes that the new system requires very little from his staff. “With our former system, it was so complex that only one or two people knew how to maintain it,” he says. “Now, any one of us can go into the platform and easily make any changes we need.”

The RingCentral solution has also paid dividends how it has improved communication between PHCC instructors and students. Many of the school’s courses are offered online, so some students rarely come to campus, Hoffman says. “Teachers can text them from their office numbers, and then students can text them back. It has allowed us to meet students where they are, something that’s challenging with traditional phone systems.”

How to Know When the Time Is Right for Cloud Communication

One higher ed institution that didn’t wait for remote learning to start its pivot to cloud phones is Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. The school was about to launch Zoom Phone campuswide when the pandemic hit.

According to Quinnipiac CIO Matthew Romeo, the university had been a Zoom videoconferencing customer for over a year and had just decided to update its telephony infrastructure by moving it to the cloud as well. They’d developed a “great relationship” with Zoom, he recalls, “and we knew that we could trust them with our phone system based on our experience with their platform.”

That’s not to say there weren’t doubters, notes John Scott, Quinnipiac’s executive director of technology infrastructure. Some in the campus public safety department were concerned about 911 functionality, for example, and employees of the world-renowned Quinnipiac University Poll questioned whether the technology would actually work.

The school went ahead with the project and completed the transition in June 2020. “Perfect timing,” according to Scott, as just about everyone had evacuated the campus.

Today, Quinnipiac has more than 2,000 numbers associated with its Zoom Phone system. About 1,800 are assigned to faculty and staff and can be used anywhere on any number of devices, while several hundred others are dedicated to specific rooms and are for on-campus calls only. The platform includes AI-enabled features such as voicemail prioritization and automated note-taking during calls, and users can host calls with up to 1,000 participants. Students, with the exception of resident advisers, don’t have access to their own extensions, but they can use their cellphones with the Zoom client to call individual instructors and attend conference calls.

Scott notes that Quinnipiac has no intention of returning to the way their phone system used to be. “This is the world that we live in and work in,” he says. “The cloud is the way to go.”

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