Summary
- A major education provider in the United States wanted to deploy over 4,000 IP phones across 400 locations.
- The education provider used NVT Phybridge PoE innovations to repurpose its existing infrastructure to avoid costly and disruptive infrastructure changes, saving over $1 million.
- The simplified deployment reduced the implementation time from 2-3 days per location to just a few hours, enabling a quick and non-disruptive migration across 400 locations.
- The organization successfully modernized from aging analog systems to a centralized IP-based communications solution, reducing operational costs and enabling improved efficiency, aligning with its sustainability goals.
Challenge
A leading childcare and early education provider wanted to deploy over 4,000 IP phones across 400 locations. The customer faced escalating costs of maintaining analog lines, with new fiber line charges of up to $2,000 per line. Upgrading to IP-based systems typically requires extensive new IDF closet requirements and cabling, which is time-consuming, complex, and expensive. The organization also needed a solution that would ensure minimal disruption across its widespread locations, particularly those with children. Additionally, aligning with its sustainability goals was a crucial factor, aiming to reduce waste and enhance energy efficiency.
Solution
The reseller partner, VLCM, recommended the NVT Phybridge PoLRE switch as the ideal solution. The PoLRE innovation allowed the customer to leverage its existing network infrastructure and CAT3 cabling with a point-to-point topology, eliminating the need for new infrastructure and significantly reducing time requirements, complexity, disruption, and costs.
The plug-and-play nature of the PoLRE switch and the ability to leverage a point-to-point topology that is standard across all 400 locations allowed for a repeatable, predictable, and scalable deployment experience. NVT Phybridge enabled seamless and quick installations across all 400 locations with minimal technical complexity or operational disruption. Furthermore, by reusing existing cabling, the solution supported the customer’s sustainability objectives by significantly reducing electronic waste and material consumption.
The PoLRE switch innovation delivers Ethernet and PoE over Single-Pair UTP cabling with up to 1,200ft (365m) reach—four times the reach of standard Ethernet switches. VLCM used the NVT Phybridge PoLRE switch innovation to help the customer avoid costly network infrastructure updates, reducing project risk, complexity, and disruption.
Result
Deployment time was drastically reduced from 2-3 days per location to just a few hours, facilitating quick and efficient rollouts across numerous sites. The transition saved the education provider over $1 million in new cabling, equipment, and dial-tone costs. The centralized IP phone system reduced the telecom team’s support load from hundreds of tickets per month to just 10-12, greatly enhancing operational efficiency.
Using the existing point-to-point topology improved the efficiency of the rollout to bring further cost savings to the customer. Additionally, using existing cabling and reducing the number of visits to each site minimized the project’s carbon footprint and contributed to the customer’s environmental goals by minimizing waste and improving energy efficiency.
The collaboration between VLCM and NVT Phybridge provided the customer with a robust, cost-effective, and sustainable IP migration solution. By leveraging NVT Phybridge PoLRE technology, the organization not only met its immediate communication needs but also advanced its sustainability objectives.
Quote
"It was a significant factor in our success in winning the project. While all other bidders suggested adding new cable, we avoided the need to survey each location for infrastructure and cabling requirements. Instead, we seamlessly integrated the NVT Phybridge product. In an environment with children, it was also very important to make sure we handled the installation with minimal disruption. With PoLRE, we were able to eliminate a possible multi-day re-cabling effort. The PoLRE solution can be installed in just a matter of hours and has worked flawlessly."
— Gene Godfrey, VLCM Technical Director of Communication Technologies
The collaboration between VLCM and NVT Phybridge provided the customer with a robust, cost-effective, and sustainable IP migration solution. By leveraging NVT Phybridge PoLRE technology, the organization not only met its immediate communication needs, but also advanced its sustainability objectives.
*This case study was originally published by NVT Phybridge. You can find the original case study here.
