ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. -- Team members at Arnold Air Force Base personnel have answered the Department of Defense call for the greater centralization of military installation communications systems by dialing up telephone upgrades for their Arnold AFB colleagues.
Over the coming months, the Base Communications and Information Technology Services contractor will replace each of the digital desk phones and Nortel Voice over Internet Protocol phones currently found on desks and in cubicles throughout Arnold with a newer Avaya VoIP telephone set. Some analog phones on base will also be swapped for new VoIP phones.
VoIP is a technology that allows users to make voice calls using a broadband internet connection instead of a regular, otherwise referred to as an analog, phone line, according to the Federal Communications Commission. VoIP services convert the user’s voice into a digital signal that travels over the internet. If a VoIP user is calling a regular phone number, the signal is converted to a regular telephone signal before it reaches the destination.
The changeover will not result in a phone number change for Arnold personnel.
Although users should realize minimal clarity improvements, the new VoIP phones will maintain the advantages the technology offers over traditional landlines.
“A lot of the advantages are moving forward,” said Aaron Moneymaker, VoIP project manager at Arnold. “When you need to add a new building or a new cubicle, you only need one cable ran now for the phone and the computer versus the old days of one for each. This cuts the cost of cable installation in half for new construction, remodels and expansions.”
The project, which involves the BCITS computer network technicians, telecom technicians, server technicians, network technicians and the Arnold Test and Base Communications Branch, commenced last year with site surveys and inventory audits of existing equipment from prior upgrade attempts. The servers required for the new phones were installed earlier this year and went live on July 24, and a small number of test phones have been installed in buildings 1433 and 1103.
The full VoIP deployment for all of Arnold started on Sept. 3. Analog devices, such as fax machines and entry phones are a part of a later phase of the project and will be addressed in the coming months.
Throughout upcoming months, those charged with the upgrade project will contact each building manager across Arnold AFB in advance of installation work beginning in the building to which the manager is assigned. This will give affected personnel the heads up, as the building manager will then disseminate a notice to those staffed in their assigned building to let them know when installation work is expected to begin.
During the first half of the two-step installation process, a project team member will install the new VoIP phone near the existing phone. A second technician will log into the new phone to ensure everything is working properly before taking the existing phone and cable.
“It is a two-step process with our computer network technicians and telecom teams working together to install each phone and build the database,” the VoIP project manager said. “They have to be installed, configured and logged in before they can be used. Personnel will also be provided with an internal link to the user guides.”
The project is slated for completion by late January 2025.
According to Moneymaker, the desire of the DOD to move away from the older private branch exchange phone systems and to the latest Unified Communications platform prompted the phone upgrade project.
The FCC defines a private branch exchange simply as a private telephone system within an organization. Unified Communications platforms are used to combine multiple communication channels such as voice, messaging and video.