Summary

Blanchard Valley Health System (BVHS) has more than 100 years of experience serving the people of northwestern Ohio. Based in Findlay, BVHS is a non-profit regional health system that has experienced substantial renovations and expansions throughout its history. Today, it consists primarily of two hospitals—one with 150 beds, the other with 60—and one assisted living facility that serves as many as 300 residents. In addition, BVHS has several small campuses for outpatient clinics, research facilities, urgent care facilities, and various other offices. In all, the health system is spread out across approximately 25 locations.

Problem

Work can be a matter of life and death in the healthcare industry. With this in mind, communication is of the utmost importance. When Jeff Kelley, the telecommunications system administrator for BVHS, joined the team a few years prior, he encountered a problem – the hospital hadn’t upgraded any software or firmware in the switches that powered the communications network. Shortly after that, Siemens contacted BVHS to let them know that the phones and infrastructure they were using had reached the end of their lives, and the company would no longer be offering support for them.

After about 10 or 11 years of not upgrading the infrastructure, BVHS had no other choice. The health system needed communications infrastructure upon which it could rely because of the severe nature of its business mission: caring for its patients across the entire span of their lives. BVHS needed a cost-effective, dependable solution for its 2,000 phones spread out across 25 geographically disparate campuses, and it required redundancy and resiliency to ensure open lines of communication in case specific networks were ever knocked offline. Having had the same phone infrastructure in place for about a decade,

BVHS began to weigh its options and started by looking at the equipment it already had in place to decide what—if anything—could be salvaged or whether it should instead go ahead and acquire all new equipment. What the health system had on hand dated back to 2002, so after analyzing the demands of the end-users—who wanted IP telephony, unified communications, and other advanced features—it decided to go with new equipment. The old phones didn’t have those capabilities. After comparing solutions from vendors like Siemens, AT&T, and Cisco, Kelley says he was ultimately attracted to a Mitel offering through BSB Communications because of the versatility that the solution provided. That pair also provided BVHS with tons of research on various offerings that the health system could peruse to determine what worked best for them. “Cost was important. I wasn’t pinned down to a specific brand,” Kelley says. “Mitel gave us the flexibility to use third-party equipment, whereas [the other brands] forced you to buy proprietary equipment.” Because of the spread-out nature of BVHS’ 25 locations, the health system needed a vendor that could offer a high level of customer support.

Kelley explains that few vendors were willing to drive four hours to offer support at a distant site. But BSB Communications was ready to provide the service the BVHS needed. Because of the health system’s desire for redundancy and resiliency, BSB suggested using solutions offered by NVT Phybridge. NVT Phybridge PoE solutions deliver Ethernet and Power over a single pair of wires four times further than traditional switches. “In the event of failure, I need to know how we could keep our systems alive,” Kelley says. “That’s when they presented the NVT Phybridge solution.” Such switches allow organizations to migrate to IP telephony while leveraging their existing, reliable communications infrastructure. In addition, the solutions provide an extra layer of redundancy, as voice and data lines can be kept separate so that if data were to fail, voice would remain online—something very attractive to a healthcare provider.

Solution

After his due diligence, Kelley decided to go with BSB’s offering of Mitel phones and NVT Phybridge switches. With this solution in place, BVHS can fulfill its mission of delivering quality care to its patients. “NVT Phybridge was essential for our disaster recovery plan,” Kelley explains. “If we lose a certain portion of network connectivity, how do we maintain our telephones? NVT Phybridge fit the bill for that. We have designated all those phones in the hospital with a red handset cord so that employees know that if a network goes down, those phones are on a backup system that should be in good shape.”

The migration process took six months, a period Kelley says was “very reasonable” considering BVHS has hospitals that need to stay online 24/7. Work scheduled in certain areas has to be postponed from time to time because other things in the hospital were deemed more important. The migration was done floor-by-floor on a department-by-department basis. After finishing a section of the project, Kelley and his team reached out to end users to ensure they were comfortable with the product before moving on to the next department because they didn’t want to look back after getting one done. They didn’t. “When we began to deploy, it was pretty seamless,” Kelley says. “The departments were unaware.”

Result

Kelley says he’s delighted with the quality of service BVHS enjoys, thanks to its chosen solution. “I don’t have a lot of service issues,” Kelley explains. “I’ve maybe had a problem with 20 of the phones, and half of those were because of end-user issues like someone spilled a drink on one. The system just works. We’ve got failover in place that always keeps us alive.” The NVT Phybridge solution also resulted in substantial cost savings. Kelley estimates that NVT Phybridge’s switches cost about half of what Cisco offers. On average, the health system had to spend $3,500 to $4,000 on NVT Phybridge’s solutions, compared to $7,000 to $9,000 for Cisco. Installation was essentially “plug and play,” Kelley continues. The factory specs indicate the switches deliver power and Power over Ethernet 1,200 feet, but they reach further at some BVHS campuses. “I have some deployed well over 2,000 feet working just fine,” he says of a handful of phones still running Category 3 cables in out-of-the-way locations. Kelley says he was—and continues to be—very pleased with BSB’s professionalism. Employees at BVHS are also pleased with their new communications infrastructure. “The end-users are absolutely satisfied with it,” he says. “The solution provided a lot of flexibility for them regarding things they couldn’t do before. With the new features [like unified communications], you can do anything you want.”

Problem

The combination of old and new architecture presented real challenges for Vermont Law School in maintaining a reliable IT infrastructure that allowed employees and students in each of the 19 buildings to stay connected. It was not uncommon for the school to experience power outages from 3 hours to 3 days. With so many students on campus at any given time, concern was growing that increased power outages, combined with an IT infrastructure that couldn’t communicate well between buildings, was unacceptable. Even 911 dispatch capabilities were unavailable across all the phones or building locations.

The historic buildings were equipped with copper wiring, and knocking down walls to re-cable these heritage facilities was not an option. Vermont Law was looking for a networking solution that could support the migration to IP communications in an economically-viable manner. Given the multiple buildings and unique features of a campus environment, they were looking for a solution to enable a quick and straightforward IP migration.

Solution

Vermont Law School’s Director of Technology, Jeanne Eicks, was introduced to the NVT Phybridge solution and immediately related to the value proposition. NVT Phybridge provides the only network switch to deliver power and data over a single pair of telephone-grade wire with four times the reach of traditional data switches. She consolidated all the switches in a single location to support the endpoints in all buildings, significantly reducing cost, risk, and disruption. “NVT Phybridge allowed us to adopt a modern technology in a situation in which we wouldn’t have been able to otherwise,” says Jeanne. “NVT Phybridge proved to be the only solution on the market that could allow us to meet our objectives.”

Result

With its signature ease of deployment, the NVT Phybridge solution was up and running in just five hours, connecting all the phones on campus through the central switch in the school’s communications room. The resulting centralized power provides sustainability to the previously unreliable system. Vermont Law School used the NVT Phybridge solution to migrate to IP Telephony and Unified Communications easily. The school’s mandate is “to educate students in a diverse community that fosters personal growth and enables them to attain outstanding professional skills and high ethical values to serve as lawyers and other professionals in an increasingly technological and interdependent global society.” With the NVT Phybridge solution, Vermont Law School is fulfilling that mandate by becoming a more technologically-advanced campus.

Campus environments typically have connectivity between buildings, supporting their current telephony solution. NVT Phybridge provides solutions that can transform existing infrastructure into an ideal platform for IP Telephony, significantly reducing cost, risk, and complexity. The standard topology across all buildings allowed for a repeatable, predictable, and scalable experience, regardless of the number of endpoints. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

NVT Phybridge Case Study: Correctional Facility

3 minute read time.

Prison Enables IP Surveillance System Using NVT Phybridge Ethernet over Coax Switch Technology

A Mexican correctional facility was relying on an outdated analog surveillance system that could no longer meet the growing demands of the prison. The organization responsible for managing the prison decided it was time for an upgrade and wanted to modernize the facility with a new IP security solution. The customer was interested in deploying IP cameras due to their enhanced video quality, better analytic capabilities, and overall improvement of security for staff, inmates, and the surrounding community.

Challenge

Several barriers needed to be addressed before the customer could deploy the new IP surveillance solution. The existing analog security cameras were supported by a Coax infrastructure that ran through the entirety of the prison. The concrete walls of the facility made it extremely difficult and costly to rip-and-replace the existing, yet reliable, Coax infrastructure.

Additionally, IP cameras needed to be deployed across all 23 areas of the prison. Considering the 328ft (100m) reach limitation of standard Power over Ethernet switches, the organization was concerned with the cost and space requirements of installing several IDF closets throughout the facility to ensure connectivity in all 23 areas. The customer needed to reduce the infrastructure costs of the project to justify the return on investment to the province.

Disruption was also a major issue while planning the digital transformation project. Like all correctional facilities, there are strict policies surrounding operation schedules. Any work done to the prison could not interfere with daily operations, to ensure the safety of staff and the community. The organization needed an innovative solution to overcome its digital transformation barriers and improve the project’s ROI.

Solution

Given the project’s challenges, an IT Manager for the province recommended NVT Phybridge Ethernet over Coax technology. The IT Manager had been an expert in the field for over 10 years and had used NVT Phybridge products in the past. The prison’s digital transformation team was intrigued by the technology and booked an online meeting to learn more.

The NVT Phybridge CLEER family of products deliver Ethernet and PoE+ over any new or existing Coax infrastructure with up to 6,000ft (1,830m) reach – that’s 18 times farther than standard PoE solutions. The customer was impressed with the technology and decided to move forward with the project; having found the perfect solution.

Result

The customer used NVT Phybridge CLEER innovations to leverage the existing and reliable Coax infrastructure; avoiding the traditional and outdated rip-and-replace model. There was no disruption to the prison during implementation, as infrastructure requirements were significantly simplified. “The NVT Phybridge equipment allowed us to reduce the initial costs of the project, allowing the project to be approved,” said the Government Agency’s Project Manager.

The institution deployed over 80 IP cameras across the facility without the need for a single new IDF closet, thanks to the solution’s long reach capabilities. The customer was able to keep the security network completely independent of the main network for ease of management. NVT Phybridge helped the customer converge the networks with a single wire in a highly secure manner to ensure centralized monitoring of the system. “NVT Phybridge helped simplify the deployment of IP technology in a difficult environment, which ultimately made the project feasible,” said Enrique Nares, Presale Engineer at Grupo HEMAC.

The customer achieved incredible results, using the NVT Phybridge Ethernet over Coax solution to:

• Avoid the disruptive and costly rip-and-replace method, reducing infrastructure costs by more than $50,000 USD
• Reduce the total deployment time by five months
• Deploy a new IP surveillance solution throughout the prison with no operational disruption
• Simplify network design by leveraging the existing, point-to-point, Coax infrastructure
• Avoid additional maintenance costs associated with complex networks and IDF closet requirements

Related Resources

Government Solutions

Ethernet over Coax Switches