Dan Hunt, technology director at Marana USD in Arizona, had a problem. He was the technology director for a fast growing district that consisted of 18 schools on the northwest side of Tucson. By 2025, the number of schools was expected to exceed 40.

Dan knew that Marana’s current infrastructure would not support the growth they were planning. The wide area network (WAN) could not support the new technology initiatives of the district and the Centrex telephony service was very expensive and, at times, unreliable. With 18 schools and over 1,300 staff, they could not afford to put a phone in every classroom. Centrex lines cost $35 per user for basic telephony service and phones cost between $500-600 each. Typically four teachers would share a telephone – a solution they didn’t like because they had little privacy when making calls.

The Centrex solution also had a significant cost impact for new schools that were being constructed.  Deploying the Centrex solution would require Marana to wire the new buildings for legacy telephony.  Installing both a voice network and a data network was inefficient and expensive - especially when Dan knew that Voice over IP (VoIP) would enable the district to put voice, video and data traffic over one network.

An additional challenge was end user administration. The Centrex vendor often took several weeks to complete a change and there was often an additional charge. Even more frustrating, Dan was tired of the lack of customer service from his vendor. “We never heard from our vendor until it was time to renew our contract,” Dan explained.

Marana needed an innovative solution that would meet the communication needs of his district. He also wanted a technology partner that would meet his district’s growth needs. “When I put out an RFP, I’m putting out a ‘Request for Partner’ not a ‘Request for Proposal’. We need a partner we can depend on when it comes to the mission critical services that our department provides our kids,” Dan stated. “We need someone that cares about our kids as much as we do!”

Then Dan met Trillion, a telecommunications company that provides Priority 1 E-Rate eligible VoIP, broadband WAN and Internet services exclusively to the K-12 market. Dan learned that with Trillion, he could put in a new broadband network that would provide 10 to 100 times the bandwidth of his current network and receive a new VoIP telephony service that would provide a phone in every classroom. All for less than what he was currently paying for his T1-based WAN and Centrex VoIP service.  Knowing this was a long-term commitment for his district, Dan invested time in due-diligence. “I visited other Trillion customers without Trillion present because I wanted to know the ‘real story’. Everyone had great things to say about Trillion and their customer service,” Dan explained.

In early 2007, Trillion deployed Marana’s VoIP service. “We were nervous about the installation. Our IT team didn’t have experience with telephony because the maintenance department had managed the Centrex vendor. We didn’t have the manpower or the brainpower to handle the installation,” Dan said. “When I told our leadership team that Trillion would handle the deployment and that it was scheduled to be completed in two weeks, they laughed in disbelief. It took our Centrex provider almost 18 months to fully deploy their service. Trillion sent a team to Marana and the service was up and running in 8 days – including the deployment of 1,300 handsets across 18 sites”.

Dan continued, “We couldn’t be happier with our new phone service. Teachers love having a phone in their classroom. It has enhanced communication with parents, teachers and administrators. I’ve also heard teachers comment that they feel safer knowing they can communicate outside the district in an emergency without having to deal with the switchboard”.  

“There have been other unexpected benefits. VoIP enables many features that traditional telephony did not. For example, our staff loves the fact that they can assign their extension to any phone and have it act as their desk phone. This gives them mobility and connectivity at the same time.  And many of our staff use the Follow Me Find Me feature to forward calls to their cell phone when they aren’t at their desk. This helps callers reach them the first time. The Personal Call Manager software has also been a big hit because it enables advanced telephony functionality for every phone – whether it’s a lower end phone or a high end phone,” said Dan.

When asked about selecting a VoIP service vs. purchasing a system and managing it himself, Dan is quick to comment. “My team couldn’t be happier. Because Trillion offers a service, we’ve essentially added VoIP engineers to our team via the Trillion Network Operations Center. Trillion monitors and manages the network and VoIP service 24 x 7. If there is an issue, they fix it. Not me!  I no longer use the monitoring tools I relied on in the past because I know Trillion is handling it. This enables my team to focus on technology issues in the classroom. Even more important, Trillion has given us control over end user administration. We no longer have to wait on a vendor. Everything is managed centrally and I can make changes at my desk. It amazes me that we added VoIP telephony services for 1,300 staff members and we didn’t have to add anyone to our IT staff! Now that’s service!” With Trillion, I have found a true partner and we couldn’t be happier.