SBC readies 50,000-node IP phone system at Ford

SBC Communications will design, implement and manage an IP (Internet Protocol) telephony system for more than 50,000 employees at Ford Motor’s world headquarters and other facilities, the carrier said Tuesday.

In a collaborative effort, Ford will own the infrastructure and manage its data network while SBC provides phone services as a managed application, said Brian Buffington, executive director of managed services at SBC. The project is SBC’s largest ever IP telephony deployment, Buffington said.

Ford is looking to maximize its operating efficiencies by turning to IP telephony at its Dearborn, Michigan, main office and 110 other company facilities in southeastern Michigan, according to Ford spokeswoman Valerie Rosnik. For example, the technology allows for easily setting up employee phone assignments when they join the company or move, she said. Most of the sites, including the headquarters, will be switched over to about 90 percent IP phones, Rosnik said. Some of the phones will run on Wi-Fi wireless LANs, according to SBC’s Buffington.

IP telephony converts voice calls into data packets to run over a conventional data network. The system to be rolled out at Ford over the next three years, based on Cisco Systems Inc. equipment, will combine separate networks at Ford into one IP-based infrastructure that carries data, voice and video, according to an SBC statement. The telephony system will be based on the SBC PremierServ IP Telephony Advantage platform, using the Cisco IP Communications system and about 50,000 Cisco IP telephones. SBC PremierServ Managed Care engineers will work on-site at Ford facilities, managing the service.

SBC will test the system at a staging center in Memphis, Tennessee, and consultants from Callisma Inc., an SBC company, will work with Ford to integrate the new system with the company’s existing infrastructure, the statement said. Ford is already an SBC customer, using the carrier’s Centrex centralized call switching service and the SBC GigaMAN Service, a point-to-point Ethernet network among its facilities in southeastern Michigan. Ford has about 327,000 employees worldwide, Rosnik said.