Case Study: University of Pennsylvania achieves cost-effective, campus-wide unified IP telephony and unified messaging with Digium's Asterisk

University of Pennsylvania - Customer Case Study

The University of Pennsylvania’s Information Systems and Computing (ISC) group faced an aging copper telephony infrastructure and saw an opportunity to leverage its modern campus fiber network to deliver more flexible, high‑function voice services. In fall 2005 ISC launched a 750‑person pilot to move telephony onto the IP network and explore open‑source, standards‑based solutions.

Working with Digium, ISC deployed Asterisk (the industry’s first open‑source PBX) with SIP routing and extended it by building a single IMAP‑based unified messaging store so voicemail, email and fax live in one mailbox. The pilot delivered richer services at a comparable short‑term cost, improved usability and maintainability, enabled long‑term cost avoidance of legacy copper repairs, and created a scalable platform for future voice‑enabled campus applications.

University of Pennsylvania

Dikran Kassabian

Senior Technology Director