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Loma Linda, Calif., Wants Workers to Have Internet Telephone Capabilities

Posted on: Monday, 3 March 2003, 06:00 CST

Loma Linda, Calif., Wants Workers to Have Internet Telephone Capabilities

Source: The Business Press

Loma Linda officials spent more than $441,000 beginning in early September to purchase software and hardware and connect city offices to central databases. But the most advantageous high-tech addition was a software package that allows staff members to send and receive telephone calls over the Internet, said James Hettrick, director of Loma Linda information systems.

"Probably the neatest thing we did was to integrate the phones," Hettrick said.

During Loma Linda's computer system upgrade, most of which concluded in November, the city merged its phone and computer systems so voice and data signals are sent and received over the Internet on fiber optic cable. The technology standard for transmitting voice data over the Internet is commonly known as voice-over-IP. The IP stands for Internet Protocol.

Various vendors make software and hardware systems used to send voice data over fiber optics networks owned by large telephone and telecommunications companies.

Voice signals traveling long distances along fiber pipelines that also are handling graphic, numerical and other sorts of data sometimes encounter interference that results in delayed delivery of the voice message, or garbled speech, said Anatoli Levine, director of software support for Radvision, a provider of videoconference network systems. Levine is a board member of the International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium in San Ramon.

Despite technical glitches, voice-over-IP is being used increasingly by businesses in general, he said. Radvision uses the technology between offices in New Jersey, Hong Kong, Israel and Sunnyvale.

However, local companies and some service providers say the technology is too costly and too new and has not taken root in the Inland Empire.

Ultimate Internet Access Inc. in Ontario, an Internet service provider that offers high-speed Internet connections does not offer voice-over-IP.

"We're kind of demand driven. We're just not seeing the grassroots demand for it," company President Ray Mouton said.

Telephone giant Verizon Communications offers no voice-over-IP products. "We see it as an emerging technology. It's not ready for prime time yet," spokesman Jonathan Davies said. The company does not view voice calls on the Internet as a revenue loss because voice-over-IP providers need the company's fiber network, he said.

Shoreline Communications Inc. in Sunnyvale supplied Loma Linda's voice -over-IP software system. The company has sold voice-over-IP systems to Old Republic Title in Riverside and has more than 500 clients throughout the nation. Shoreline counts networking giants Cisco Systems Inc. and Nortel Networks among its biggest competitors, said Jennifer Stagnero, vice president of Shoreline marketing.

In Loma Linda's case, the voice-over-IP software saved administrative costs, Hettrick said. The system converts voice-mail into e-mail and allows staff members, through their desktop computers, to direct their calls to someone else when the staff member is out of the office and transfer calls to a phone at another work station when the employee changes desks.

"[Employees] can just work anywhere they want to. Their number follows them," Hettrick said. "They have the ability to control their phone and how it operates in their work group without administrative overhead."

The software traces the path of incoming calls as callers are transferred between staffers, and shows the name and contact information of the caller if the individual is listed in one of the city's three databases.

Loma Linda uses the Verizon network for voice transmission and Time Warner for Internet service. The city paid Shoreline $88,220 for 150 phones, switches, software, licenses, installation and training.

While Radvision saves long-distance telephone charges on calls between Radvision offices, the greatest benefit is the convergence of telephone and computer technology allowing conference calls and calls to other telephones, to cell phones, fax machines and other computers to be made from one desktop personal computer, Levine said.

"The beauty is converged services," he said.

Loma Linda's beefed up connectivity, which links the city's corporate yard civic center and senior center with super-high-speed CAT6 cable can transmit 1,000 megabytes a second. Internally, the network sends information at 100 megabits a second between work stations, Hettrick said.

"Everything is tied together in one way or another," he said. The city is placing other functions on the Internet as well and expects to offer online utility billing by year's end, he said. A telephone room at city hall houses seven computer servers. The system is designed so if one server shuts down, transmissions are automatically routed through another server, Hettrick said.

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To see more of The Business Press, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.thebizpress.com

(c) 2003, The Business Press, Ontario, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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