Information Technology Services (ITS)

VoIP migration project hits five-year anniversary

Published on: February 14, 2022

The University of Toronto’s (U of T) Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) migration project in partnership with service provider GoCo (previously known as BroadConnect) began in 2017, and since then the Telecommunications team within Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions has transferred more than 13,000 telephone lines to VoIP phone lines.

Telecommunications received U of T’s Excellence Through Innovation Award for the VoIP migration project, which was officially completed in November 2020. The move to VoIP reduced the University’s average annual telephony spend from $5.5M in the years before 2017 to a forecasted $2.8M in fiscal 2022, which represents an annual savings of nearly 50 per cent.

Headset on keyboard

VoIP provides a modernized voice communication solution that can meet the unique requirements of departments across the University. VoIP also helped staff and faculty to maintain voice communication and provide business continuity during the COVID-19 pandemic when many employees had to quickly pivot to remote work. Since the end of 2020, the majority of University staff and faculty has migrated to VoIP as their main voice communication solution.

VoIP migration milestones

2022 marks the VoIP migration project’s five-year anniversary. Milestones achieved include:

  • 774 U of T departments moved to VoIP
  • 2,291 employees using Communicator 7, U of T’s VoIP application
  • 12,500+ VoIP subscribers across U of T