In today's digital world, communication platforms matter. In a recent Cisco Government blog post we looked at how antiquated communication systems hold back government agencies. The same holds true for educational institutions.

Legacy TDM and Centrex systems are costly to manage and limit collaboration, precluding schools and universities from truly embracing the advantages that next generation communications has to offer. As the advantages of voice over IP (VoIP) systems become well-known and widespread, more colleges and schools are making the transition and network administrators, students, teachers and parents are reaping the benefits.

When the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG), which consists of more than 11,000 employees across 110 campus locations, made the decision to ditch their traditional telephony architecture for next-generation VoIP services, they were able to streamline administrative tasks and facilitate inter-college collaboration.  Working with Cisco, TCSG deployed IP telephony solutions, including Cisco Unified Communications, Cisco Unified Presence, and Cisco TelePresence and secured a unique IP end point for each college to support the deployment.

Likewise, California's Alhambra Unified School District made a similar decision to migrate from an old, outdated phone system to a modern communication platform. Thanks to Cisco's VoIP solutions they were able to increase district wide communications, improve emergency preparedness and facilitate teacher-parent collaboration which is no easy feat for a district that boasts more than 18,000 students and 19,000 staff members across 19 locations. Modernizing their communication platform involved a complete overhaul of their legacy system, yet cut maintenance and recovery costs while allowing for an interconnected network managed from one central location.

Is your school ready to make the switch to a modern communication system? Learn more in our recent blog: Now is the Right Time to Upgrade Your Agencies Collaboration.

Also, don't miss our National Town Hall on 4/25, where we will hear from technology leaders about how they have used collaboration technology to achieve their specific goals.