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Computerworld - The Seattle Times Co. learned in 2001 that its private branch exchange vendor, Avaya Inc., would soon discontinue support for its aging Definity G2 circuit-switched phone system. So the century-old daily newspaper embarked on a search for a future-proof PBX replacement.
"We're a 24-by-7 shop with a newsroom full of deadline-oriented reporters," says Thomas Dunkerley, IT communications manager. "We have the same expectations for quality of service and uptime that hospitals have."
After also evaluating phone systems from Cisco Systems Inc. and Nortel Networks Ltd., the company settled on an Avaya Communication Manager IP PBX. Nortel seemed to require a forklift change in administration, Dunkerley says, and CPU fault-tolerance in Cisco's CallManager IP PBX required manual intervention.
"For one CPU to fail over to the other, you had to go in and make routing changes," he explains.
Historically, negative perceptions surrounding IP PBX reliability have inhibited IP telephony acceptance, says Robert Rosenberg, president of The Insight Research Corp. in Boonton, N.J. This is one reason the number of installed IP-based phone extensions won't catch up with the number of legacy extensions until 2007, according to Insight's research.
Today, remote Seattle Times news bureaus, warehouses and distribution sites run Avaya 4620 IP handsets but not Avaya PBX software. Instead, the distributed handsets feed off a centrally managed system via private routed WAN connections. Remote users dial over the private network to the headquarters IP PBX to make any kind of call.
"What used to cost us $50,000 in dial charges now costs us $2,000 for a router at each site," Dunkerley says.
The catch, though, is that should a T1 fail, all land-line calling capabilities at that site would cease. So there is an emergency analog line at most sites. "And there are cell phones around to use in case of emergency," Dunkerley says.

Thomas Dunkerley, IT communications manager at The Seattle Times Co. Image Credit: Brian Smale

Coat-Hanger Cabling Plant
The Times headquarters consists of four connected buildings constructed over the past 100 years or so. When the company purchased the Avaya Communication Manager in 2001, it had a mix of old, very old and very, very old cabling.
Dunkerley notes that VoIP requires a high-end, Category 5E cabling plant. "But shortly after we bought the system, Sept. 11 hit. Then there was the dot-com bust, and our budget vaporized," he says. "We were stuck with an IP phone system needing a good cabling infrastructure and no money to get one."
The situation slowed deployment. But the Times conducted extensive in-house testing