North Central Texas College

The North Central Texas College (NCTC) in Gainesville, Texas is the oldest continuously operated two-year public institution in the state. It has nearly 7,000 students at campuses at its hub, Gainesville, as well as more in nearby Corinth and Bowie.

“We had different systems on each of our three campuses and lots of management overhead. We had a bunch of POTS lines coming into the campus and no one person who was responsible for telephones.”
— Steve Rigler, Network System Administrator, North Central Texas College.

The existing phone system covering the three campuses was a combination of Centrex and PBXs. Not only were monthly telecom service costs prone to spiraling out of control, but finding technicians trained to fix the old Fujitsu PBX was also becoming increasingly difficult. Complicating matters, since faculty and staff couldn’t transfer calls or direct-dial between campuses, long-distance charges were running almost $3,000 a month. The college sought to install a single, unified phone system that would bring costs under control while increasing the efficiency of both its internal and external communications.

“We couldn’t transfer calls between different groups on campus. Students would call and want to speak to an instructor at another campus and were told they had to dial long distance to reach the right campus. We also couldn’t transfer calls to different student services, which caused headaches for operators and hurt productivity.”
— Steve Rigler, Network System Administrator, North Central Texas College.

After extensive research, a field trip to see a demo at an existing ShoreTel customer in Dallas, and eliciting references from other customers, the team made their decision. ShoreTel’s user-friendliness and streamlined management interface were high on the list of reasons for their choice. In June 2004, the college began deployment of a new IP phone system consisting of ShoreTel Voice Switches, two ShoreTel T1s for PRI switching, and a combination of both ShoreTel IP and analog phones. With ShoreTel Call Manager, the college was able to make a full-blown leap forward in technology, from a phone system that had no caller ID or voicemail to being able to transfer and make conference calls. Other benefits include:

• The intuitive features of ShoreTel Call Manager enable faculty, staff, and operators to transfer, conference, and access directories for extension information easily. User documentation is available online, which cuts down on training.
• The admissions department uses ShoreTel's workgroups capability to consolidate calls into a single number, so numerous agents can answer calls coming in on a single line.
• NCTC’s business office, library, computer helpdesk, and main operator also use the workgroup application to serve the campus community more efficiently.
• The virtual PBX that encompasses the three campuses also offers routing flexibility and savings of about $35,000 in annual long distance costs.

"The ShoreTel Call Manager is one of the best features you can possibly have. If you use the phone a lot, ShoreTel will really simplify your life."
— Steve Rigler, Network System Administrator, North Central Texas College.