How It'll Affect You — Telephones

As part of the renewal project we'll be replacing every single telephone handset on campus. This is because the handset that you currently have will not be compatible with our new PBX system, and will not work once the migration is complete. Note, however, that in most instances your phone number will not change.

Detailed planning information on exactly how we'll achieve this is not yet available. It is likely, however, that we'll divide the campus into sectors or buildings and tackle one of these at a time. This means that we'll probably replace every single phone in your building at the same time, within the space of a single day.

When it is your turn to have your phone replaced, someone will visit your office to assist you. They'll bring your new phone instrument and help you plug it in and configure it. The person who assists you will also be able to give you some basic training on how to use your new phone — there'll be more training available later on as well. They'll then take your old phone instrument away with them (this is an key part of our project — you cannot keep your old phone instrument).

The new IP telephones use the same network as your computer. They can share the same network point, and this will be the usual way we deploy them. Where people have additional network points in an office, we might make use of these if they're more convenient. Where people don't have an appropriate network point in the right place, we'll need to schedule the installation of a new network point (this might take some time, but we'll try to identify problem areas in advance).

The new phones also require electrical power. This will typically mean that we'll need to use a plug socket close to where the phone or network point is connected. (We'd suggest that you check and make sure one is available before we get to your building).

It is likely that as each building has its phones replaced, there'll be a brief period during which neither the old nor the new phone works. This is because we need to migrate your phone extension from the old PBX system to the new one, and we'll probably do this in blocks of one building at a time. We'll work with the supplier's project planners to try to minimise the duration of any outage required.