TIP OF THE MONTH: Leverage 3CX's Concurrent Call License Model to Promote Cost Savings for Schools

Can you visualize selling the next phone system to the schools in your ISD? Learn why ABP partners had a record year for phone system sales to schools!

Affordable School Phones: E-rate Funding & 3CX

Per the FFC.gov, The Schools and Libraries program, also known as the E-rate program, makes telecommunications and information services more affordable for schools and libraries in America. Mandated by Congress in 1996 and implemented by the Federal Communications Commission in 1997, the E-rate provides discounted telecommunications, Internet access, and internal connections to eligible schools and libraries, funded by the Universal Service Fund (USF).
 
Schools receive funding and discounts for adopting certain technologies and VoIP appears to be a technology schools will have to adopt in order to continue leveraging their E-rate funding.

E-rate funding for PRIs and POTS lines is being phased out and schools are looking for options to migrate to SIP and IP based telephony. Summer is here and classes are out. Now is the time to demo 3CX to your customers in the education space and capitalize on the down time while students are away.

Why Traditional PBX Systems Don't Work for Schools

Schools typically have many classrooms and offices, almost all of which have at least one phone. In some cases, they may also need overhead paging speakers and possibly IP cameras in certain locations of the campus. But while the school has many users and extensions, their daily call volume is relatively low. Unlike a call center where you may have hundreds of calls waiting in a Queue, a K-12 school may only need an average of 3-5 calls at any given time.
 
Consider a local high school that may have 80 classrooms, each containing a phone. All of the teachers’ offices have a phone also. Then we have to account for the overhead paging speakers in the hallways.
 
 

3CX: Unlimited Extensions & Low Cost for High Volume of Phones

In most PBX solutions available on the market today, there would be licenses required for each extension and endpoint. It would be very costly to replace the school’s legacy PBX with a solution that charges per extension. Not so with 3CX. The licensing model of 3CX allows for an unlimited number of extensions and users…we only need to account for total simultaneous call volume. In a school environment, the ratio of number of calls to number of phones is very low. In our example of 100+ extensions, it would be common for this school to only need a 3CX license for 8 concurrent calls for only $995!

Granted, there are other pieces required to complete the solution including a Windows server, Cat6 wiring, IP Phones, PoE switches, your labor charges etc, etc. But the cost of the PBX itself is drastically reduced by using 3CX as compared to most any other IP PBX solution in the market.

Another added benefit is the monthly cost savings SIP trunks will provide as compared to analog and digital circuitry. Not to mention the E-Rate discounts which are being phased out. An actual example of these cost savings is Wiltshire College in the UK.

Wiltshire has a student body of over 10,000 students and 1,000 employees. Migrating to 3CX has allowed Wiltshire to  save over $100,000 per year in telephony costs. Read the full case study here: http://www.3cx.com/case-studies/wiltshire-college-makes-massive-savings-with-3cx-phone-system/

Mark your Calendar for Upcoming Events

Join us for a special Power Lunch with 3CX and Patton and have lunch on us! We'll be coming to the following cities:

• August 6 - Sunnyvale, CA
• August 20 - Nashville, TN

Call ABP at 972-831-1600 or email sales@abptech.com to discuss your next 3CX project.