About Us
Introduction
Telecommunications and Emergency Support Technologies serves North Dakota State University students, faculty, staff, and a variety of NDSU partners by providing leadership and expertise in enterprise voice, emergency support technologies, and the University’s underground communications infrastructure. Vital to our overall operation is our role in supporting NDSU’s Police and Safety, 24-hour, Communications Call Center, and their emergency response teams and processes. In addition to the main campus, NDSU delivers voice, security card access and video surveillance services to eight remote NDSU locations. We also have a partnership with North Dakota State College of Science in Wahpeton to deliver voice services over the State Network. Likewise, our department provides leadership regarding State-wide telephony integration/collaboration within the North Dakota University System.
As a result of several campus-wide directives and initiatives, the Telecommunications and Emergency Support Technologies Department has experienced tremendous expansion and growth. We have implemented new advanced technologies designed to enhance the security and safety of the campus, engaged in enterprise-wide partnerships, reflected on and enhanced the fusion of voice and data in one platform, and have continued to leverage the institution’s investment in providing the technology/infrastructure to support the growth and expansion of NDSU on the main campus and its remote sites.
FY2010-11 Telecommunications Diagram
Technologies
TELECOMMUNICATIONS | EMERGENCY SUPPORT |
|
|
Transport Infrastructure
| CATV
|
Voice
| Security Card Access
|
Call Management
| Emergency Communications
|
Cellular
| Video Surveillance
|
Major Initiatives
- Single Mode Fiber installation project, completed in three phases totaling $600,000, supplemented existing aged infrastructure provisioning greater bandwidth and higher transport speeds to campus buildings in support of future academic and research requirements, as well as extending greater bandwidth capacity to the campus’ 14 residence halls.
- $1.25 million telecommunications upgrade to Internet Protocol (IP), leveraging the existing AVAYA platform. This investment allowed NDSU to provide enterprise level telecommunications service to eight remote NDSU campus locations and to the North Dakota State College of Science in Wahpeton as well as to other NDUS institutions. With the funding of institutional IT a top priority amongst colleges and universities, we now have the advanced technologies to centrally share systems across campuses, leveraging the State network to optimize systems for ongoing and future Unified Communications solutions. This project also incorporated an Enterprise Survivable Server (ESS) at the Research Park to provide overall system redundancy in the event of a failure. This ESS has redundant carrier facilities to protect the campus from failure in provider circuits.
- Continued expansion of the campus CATV infrastructure in which Emergency Alert System (EAS) infrastructure and systems now provide an emergency TV broadcast to 1909 residence hall and apartment units as well as to 152 administrative/academic locations within 48 campus buildings. Routine testing of all systems continues on the first Wednesday of each month.
- AVAYA voice messaging upgrade at an estimated cost of $400,000, leveraging NDSU’s existing technology investment and platform to provide next generation voice messaging and unified communications.
- Expanding the IT Division’s business processes for the purpose of expanding BITEK, the Telecommunications department accounting/billing software, to include a Division-wide billing system. Plans also include the module expansions of asset management/inventory, work/project management, infrastructure and cable management.
- Entered into a successful partnership with Student Life to share the existing CBORD system (Student Life’s investment of $270,000 expanded our existing CBORD system) adding privilege control and Dining Services applications. This partnership has emphasized NDSU’s "one-card philosophy" of using a single ID card for multiple business processes and technology applications, as well as allowing the IT Division another opportunity to serve the campus in collaborative partnerships. Re-carding of the campus to all proximity cards was completed in spring of 2011.
- Installation of a centralized/integrated video surveillance system ($350,000) to support an enhanced centralized card access and integrated video surveillance network, infrastructure and associated equipment reporting back to the University Police Communications Call Center (24 hours per day, 365 days per year) for central monitoring to better manage the building envelope in crisis situations. Additional phases will bring existing independent campus video surveillance locations onto the “system” with policy development and a pricing structure to include a scalable model to enable build-out to additional buildings as dollars are made available.
