Case Study: Bisk Education saves over $150,000 in licensing costs with Digium's Asterisk

Bisk Education Saves Over $150,000 in User Fees Switching to Asterisk

Bisk Education, a Tampa-based online education provider with 765 employees and a 400-person recruiting and student-support call center, faced an aging Nortel TS-1000 PBX and growing uncertainty after Avaya’s acquisition of Nortel. The hybrid system didn’t integrate well, features and components were incompatible, and per-user licensing costs were escalating—sometimes up to $1,000 per employee—making further investment unsustainable.

Calvin Wells led a phased rollout of Asterisk, the open-source VoIP platform, replacing costly licenses and bridging SIP connectivity to international trunks. With a two-person implementation team, custom call-queue rules, and a web-centric admin dashboard, Bisk gained more functionality, seamless internal calling, and unified messaging flexibility—saving well over $150,000 in licensing in the first year and reducing time and operational costs.

Bisk Education

Calvin Wells

Director of Network Operations and Engineering