U-M Telephone Services

• Faculty & Staff Telephone Services
• Student Telephone Services

The University of Michigan owns and operates its own telephone infrastructure. At the center of it is a Nortel SL-100 telephone switch that has regularly been upgraded since it was acquired in 1984. The telephone switch is operated by ITCS/ITCom staff and consistently provides service at 99.999% reliability. The telephone service and infrastructure are debt-free and it has available capacity.

The Nortel SL-100 switch is located in the lower level of the School of Education Building (SEB). It provides traditional telephone lines to serve U-M faculty and staff on the Ann Arbor, Flint and Dearborn campuses. In addition, telephone service for students living in University Housing residence halls on the Ann Arbor campus is provided. ITCS/ITCom staff regularly seeks user satisfaction input. On a 5.0 scale with 5 being excellent, satisfaction with the U-M telephone service consistently averages 4.65 or higher.

In addition to the SL-100, ITCom provides 1,300 Centrex lines to U-M personnel located in non-U-M buildings and has implemented newer technologies such as Voice over IP (VoIP). The campus has adopted VoIP in cases where there is an advantage over traditional telephone lines. For example, U-M units regularly use VoIP as a way to retain U-M phone numbers in off-campus locations, especially when the move to the location is temporary.

U-M telephone system statistics as of January 2009 include:

• 25,073 Traditional telephone lines for faculty and staff
• 7,313 Traditional telephone lines for residential students
• 1,860 Voice over IP (VoIP) telephone lines
• 175,000 Average number of phone calls per weekday
• 30,000 Average number of phone calls per weekend day
• 5,000,000 Average number of calls per month

Voice mail is an opt-in service for faculty and staff as well as students living in University Housing residence halls.

• 11,644 Basic Voice Mailboxes (for traditional telephone lines only)
• 5,600 Exchange Voice Mailboxes* (for both traditional and VoIP telephone lines)   *Strategic direction

ITCom provides an operator service for the U-M Ann Arbor, Flint and Dearborn campuses as well as the UM Hospitals and Medical Center. U-M Operators can be reached at (734) 764-1817 or by dialing "0" from an on-campus telephone. In addition to providing U-M directory service, operators also assist with conference calls and other voice services.

U-M Automated Operator service (734) 615-2244 is a voice recognition directory service that is always available.