The Brandeis telephone network experienced system-wide outages for periods of approximately 30 minutes on two separate occasions last week, according to Associate CIO and Director of ITS Anna Tomecka. The outages occurred when two Cisco technicians, a Verizon technician and a Brandeis technician attempted to use a patch to fix a bug in the system's software. Cisco is the company that implemented Voice-over-IP (VoIP) at the University. Both outages occurred between 1 and 2 a.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, and according to Tomecka, those times were chosen to limit the number of students affected. No e-mail was sent to students or staff to inform them of any system problem.

Tomecka said ITS cannot identify the cause of the outages. "I wish we knew," she said. "It's not a problem that occurs every night."

Tomecka said she blames Cisco for the problem.

"(Cisco) came up with this patch and told us it is not an invasive patch," Tomecka said, adding that Cisco said the patch would not disrupt the VoIP system.

Tomecka said she expressed regret for the outages. "It is very upsetting and unfortunate, because this is a great system," she said. "Every once in a while there is a hiccup."

The patch must be applied again, Tomecka said, although the newest version of it has yet to be released. "We really want them to take their time to test it," she added.

ITS was "a bit misled by Cisco" regarding the patch, Tomecka said. "We are not going to take their word for granted."

Cisco ran into problems in July when Merrill Lynch decided to switch the VoIP system it employs at its New Jersey headquarters over to equipment from Avaya, a Cisco competitor, according to a July 24 CNET article. A Merrill Lynch representative was quoted in the article as saying the reason for the switch was due to "network outage issues."

Cisco remains the largest provider of VoIP technology, however, according to the same article.

Tomecka added that from now on software will be tested on what she termed a "test and development system" before being implemented on the actual server.

For the entire time of the outages last week, neither Public Safety nor the Brandeis Escort Safety Service could be reached by students from both on-campus and off-campus phones. The Justice attempted to contact the dispatching officer at the Stoneman building Tuesday morning, but this was possible only through the old phone-system, which is still active in limited spots on campus.

Chief of Public Safety Ed Callahan said he is confident in the new system, despite these outages. "I can say emphatically when (Cisco and Verizon) put in the new phones, (safety concerns) came first with these people," he said.

"The people at Cisco, Verizon and IT have worked tirelessly to implement this system," he added.

Callahan said he was notified of the first outage by Escort Coordinator Aaron Levine, after which he contacted Director of Telecommunications Mary Bromfield for assistance. Callahan said he is satisfied with the response, since the outages "were corrected quickly and repaired as far as I'm concerned."

Callahan also pointed out that in emergencies students can use one of 35 blue emergency call-boxes on campus to reach Public Safety. "Those should work," he said.

According to Bromfield, however, the emergency call-boxes are routed over copper-wire into the new VoIP system. This means the call boxes would be ineffectual in an outage. "There is always a potential loss of analog dial tone depending on what the service problem is," Bromfield wrote in an e-mail, stating also, "just as if it was the old telephone system."

According to Bromfield, there are 580 analog phones remaining on campus. This includes the emergency blue-light phones, residence hall entrance phones - call-boxes - and campus phones. At least some call boxes outside dormitories were not working at the beginning of the semester, but the evident problem has been corrected.

"We are always monitoring the outside phones and have replaced several in the past few months due to corrosion and age," Bromfield wrote. "We receive repair calls as well if a phone is out of service."

"Public Safety monitors the blue-light phones on a daily basis and they contact us if there is a problem," she added.

Callahan said he is satisfied that the system is an improvement over the old one, especially with regard to Public Safety. "The system is a great enhancement to the system that we had," he said, pointing out that the dispatching officer can now see from where a call originates.

Tomecka said the telephone system is "hugely redundant and built not to have a fail."

"We should be proud that we are a part of (VoIP) and able to use it and pioneer it and offer all the advantages it brings," Tomecka said. "This is the future for telephones and because we had to change our system, we decided that was the only option for us."

According to various estimates, at this time, approximately 10 percent of all calls internationally are carried over VoIP in one way or another.

Repairing the existing 17-year-old telephone network at the University would have cost $1 million, according to Tomecka. Implementing VoIP cost under $4 million, according to a Sept. 2 article in the Justice.

According to ITS, several other educational institutions have begun to employ VoIP, including Harvard, although Tomecka said that university had not implemented the system in campus dormitories.

ITS is confident enough in the new telephone system to dismantle the old one soon, Tomecka said as well. There is no plan to retain a backup copper-wire telephone system, although Tomecka said it is possible a small version of the system could be retained as a backup. "We haven't gotten down to the dirty details," she said.