VOIP Issues we are facing in Hawaii

Business Cases for VOIP

1) Garrison: We are experiencing a lot of units shuffling between garrison buildings and new folks coming to Hawaii to fill new "Modular" units. When there is not a building to hold a unit, the garrison has been setting up trailers. Some locations that they have been selecting or projecting for trailers have no copper or fiber connectivity to the voice and data infrastructure. Some of these locations can be .5-20 miles from the nearest manhole and can cost anywhere from 100K to millions of dollars to lay outside plant infrastructure. A possible solution is to shoot a building to building free space optics or wireless shot from our nearest Area Distribution Node and push NIPR, SIPR (encrypted with a TACLANE), and VOIP over that shot. We are estimating over 50% savings utilizing FSO and VOIP for temporary buildings or buildings that are not financially feasible to lay outside plant to.

2) Tactical: Our largest customer, the 25 Infantry Division, wants the ability to mantain the same DSN/Commercial number that they have in their office when they deploy (for VIP's only). One option is to utilize VOIP to provide them the same number anywhere in the world.

3) VIP Factor: Some of our VIP's (generals) see this little icon on Outlook 2003 when clicking on a contact that says "Make a call". They want to be able to just click on a contact and some phone calls that person from email. Microsoft has told us that this feature is currently more computer to computer, and with Vista we will be able to utilize computer to call manager.......

Issues:

1) E911: Further time and money must be invested to update and syncronize the VOIP Call Manager's Database with the states E911 database.

2) Power: Landlines are powered through a copper pair that leads back to one of our Lucent 5ESS switches. Each of these switches are on both UPS and Generator power. Because of this, power to a phone is never lost anywhere on base utilizing this system. Now with VOIP, our IP network follows the standard I3MP design (MCN to ADN to EUB). Only our MCN's are on critical power. Because of this, if power is lost to an ADN, an EUB, or to the VOIP phone itself, phone calls can not be made. This is introducing 3 critical failure points for power into our voice network, where there were no points previously.

3) DISA DSN Area Codes: If we provide a Pacific DSN number to a unit deploying to Afganistan or Iraq, they will have a Pacific DSN number matched to a CENTCOM location listed within a phone book. This could cause confusion and I doubt that DISA would like it.

Way Ahead:

Although we currently utilize VOIP capable Lucent 5ESS switches, we are leaning towards Cisco call managers so that our staff is trained on the same equipment utilized in the field (our DOIM often gets phone calls from field exercised and deployments for help). I am currently working with Cisco to create a draft ROM. Have any of you all fielded a Cisco VOIP solution in your unit and have any comments that might assist in our planned fielding?

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