CASE STUDY: Hartford Seminary

THE SITUATION

In spite of its modern architecture, Hartford Seminary is one of the oldest, continuously run seminaries in the United States dating back to 1833. Their phone system was old, too. So old in fact, that when their antiquated phone system broke down, no one was able to make or receive calls for days because technicians had difficulty finding replacement parts in order to make repairs.

Hartford Seminary required a new phone system that was — above all else — reliable.

THE APPROACH

Genie Innovations, Inc. (IP Genie) assessed the overall situation, the seminary’s phone system needs, and its Internet connectivity. IP Genie determined there was access to a high-speed fiberoptic connection via the Connecticut Education Network (CEN).

Working with Hartford Seminary IT Director Ann Crawford, IP Genie designed and installed a premise-based VOIP solution, which automatically included redundancy, so the seminary will never lose the ability to make or receive calls again.

THE OUTCOME

IP Genie delivered a reliable, scalable and secure VOIP telephone system to Hartford Seminary — along with peace of mind.

Crawford commented, “As well as reliability, the new IP Genie phone system gives us more flexibility. We can easily make changes when we need to. What a relief to no longer worry that we could lose phone service and be unable to re-establish it! Moving to a modern, reliable service crosses one worry completely off our list.”

The IP Genie system:

• Added convenience and productivity features including Caller ID, Voicemail to Email, Conferencing, an easy Greeting Change mode, and building-to-building paging capabilities
• Improved call quality with high-definition voice telephone calls
• Self PBX administration for easy in-house “adds, moves and changes” requests
• Reduced long-distance dialing costs
• Provided failover protection in the event of power outages