Background
Alas Peruanas University S.A. (UAP) is the Peruvian Institution with the largest academic offer in Peru, providing access to quality higher education for all Peruvians and educating students to become professionals with an entrepreneurial vision. Currently, UAP has 33 teaching sites, with its main campus in Lima province and 19 branch campuses nationwide.
With such distributed network and the need for a robust, reliable phone system to facilitate efficient communication between 900+ faculty, the institution needed a remote-working-friendly unified communications solution. Furthermore, its IT personnel was also seeking a solution that could help cut costs on telephony and system maintenance.
Objective and Challenges
Using a traditional phone system would cost a lot of money each year, and the branches were not on the same plane, which caused a lot of extra communication costs and was not economical.
UAP wanted to find an affordable solution that would allow its 20 branches to communicate effectively and securely in a one single platform. They had high call quality requirements and need a system that could run 24/7. Also, as the university are keep expanding, the solution needed to be easily expandable to accommodate future needs.
Remote work has always been there, it’s just that the advent of COVID-19 has made it more necessary. That means the solution also needs to support remote access. Whether from home or elsewhere, staff, teachers, and students can communicate easily and stay productive without compromise.
Solution
Considering the requirements, Optical Networks – Yeastar certified reseller in Peru – introduced the Yeastar UC solution to the university and it soon beat the competition.
Hitting just right between the performance and costs, four units of Yeastar S300 VoIP PBX expanded with eight units of Yeastar D30 modules were deployed to the university. The system works in a cross-network to support over 900 extensions, and two of the four PBXs are alternatively working in hot standby mode to ensure high system availability.
“We deployed numerous Yealink Phones, from T19p to T48s, and 120 SIP trunks on each HA node and on each Yeastar S300 VoIP PBX from different fiber routes, from different nodes. Against our Metaswitch SoftSwitch class 5 platform (Optical SIP Trunk).”
“We are very satisfied with the quality of calls, stability and ease of use and reporting.”
Thanks to the solution, UAP has accomplished this goal while increasing data security, reducing costs, and increasing efficiency beyond its own expectations. There are two features that typically fit into the requirements.
- Remote Connectivity with Linkus UC Clients & Linkus Cloud Service
With Linkus UC Clients that integrate voice, messaging, conferencing, and more, the remote personnel now can work and collaborate with clear, reliable calling and secure unified communications, from virtually any device. And thanks to the Linkus Cloud Service, the capacity has been expanded to anywhere.
Designed to enable hassle-free remote working in minutes, the Linkus Cloud Service avoids the necessity of port forwarding when using the Linkus UC Clients outside of the university’s intranet. It offers uninterrupted Linkus remote connections in minutes, so remote workers can stay connected anywhere anytime – with a full spectrum of office extension and collaboration features readily accessible from their own mobile phone or computer.
- Zoho CRM Integration
Yeastar PBX System supports integration with Zoho CRM, Dynamics 365, and Google Contacts, so users can enjoy click-to-call, call popup, call journals, etc. right on the CRM. And this has streamlined the operations and boosted the productivity of the administrative staff of the university. They were able to know who is calling before picking up the phone and the auto call logging helps save time from manually entering data.
“The integration with Linkus and Zoho CRM are also some of the features that make the platform the best option for us and in the current circumstances where the person is working remotely.”
Room to Grow
“Great capacity for growth, hot standby service, excellent stability and easy maintenance.”
UAP are further convinced with the solution’s future-proofness. The S-Series VoIP PBX provides flexible telephony interfaces combination while allowing for future scalability with field-upgradable modular design. Also, the free life-time software update ensures the always-on accessibility to the latest business-enhancing features, allowing the university to optimize core tasks many years down the road.
Yeastar – A Proven UC Solution for Schools
It is not unique that Yeastar has put a lot of efforts in helping schools build reliable communication networks while accommodating expansion demand.
“In the case of Peruvian universities, it is not the only case,” said Miguel Rabi, Optical Networks, “We have a similar solution in the Ricardo Palma University, also with 860 extensions and the San Ignacio de Loyola Institute with 150 extensions and a Contact Center, as well as the Antonio Ruiz de Montoya University with a hybrid solution of more than 190 annexes with an analog part thanks to the TA3200 of Yeastar.”