New Telephone Approach - Unified Communications

Winter quarter 2026, the college will begin migrating the current phone system to a new system based on a local FreePBX system and using Microsoft Teams as the softphone and voicemail application.

Through March 2026, an IT Services phone transition team will be meeting with all areas and departments across the college to answer questions and plan for the migration. We will also be hosting open help sessions to give faculty and staff the opportunity to ask questions and learn more about new functionality.

Future State of the Phone System Diagram

Hardware Options

January 2026 there will be a survey sent to all employees to find out how they use their phones currently so we will know what the best hardware options would be to fit their particular use-case. In most cases, this will fall into one of three categories.

  1. No new hardware - This option will be the most common option for most people. As the new phone service will be coming through Microsoft Teams, whatever is currently used for video conferencing (such as Teams and Zoom) will work with the new system. Most people who work even one day remote/week have already solved this issue
  2. New headset - This option will be for those who would like an upgrade to their current headset. We will be providing either mono (one ear) or stereo (two ear) USB option.
  3. New desk phone - For most people a new desk phone will be unnecessary, but in the case of a clear business need or strong preference for a desk phone, our testing has determined that most people have found it simpler to move to just using a headphone or computer speakers and microphone and Teams for taking and answering calls.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • What is driving this change? The current phone system hardware on premise will no longer be supported or patched by the vendor.
  • Will my phone number change?  No, your extension will be the same as you have now.
  • Will I still have a long-distance access code? No, these will be going away in the new system, there will be no extra cost to dial long-distance.
  • What if I am a part of a call center? We will be working directly with call centers to setup these up to function similarly to how they work today.
  • Will there be documentation? We will be building all sorts of new support documentation on support website.

Other Questions? Please feel free to contact the IT Help Desk if you would like more information about the project or the new system.