A primer on the SSA's VoIP phone system

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is in the process of consolidating its different phone systems into one VoIP-based network. SSA is the biggest agency so far to make the move to VoIP, and its experience and (potential) success in demonstrating cost savings and improved call handling may prompt other government agencies to do the same.

Federaltimes.com does a deep dive into the call handling improvements being made by SSA as Nortel turns up the system on a 10-year, $300 million contract. For example, inbound 800-number calls can be automatically routed to the closest Social Security field office and to the first available specialist; if the local staff is backed up, calls can automatically fall over to the next local office. Trying to do all this on a TDM system would require an ugly amount of effort across an array of legacy systems.

Cost savings are expected through move-add-change (MAC) simplification and plug-and-play of new equipment with remote management. New and moved offices gain the benefit and savings of having a single network for voice and data. There's also going to be much easier and faster call data for inbound calls, so call volume, wait time, peak times, and nature of the call can be quickly assessed.

The migration isn't all roses however. Traditional phone systems go down "less than 30 seconds a year" said a SSA spokesperson, while data networks average 86 hours of downtime a year. To make VoIP work, data networks have to be improved to handle call volume and have less than an hour of downtime a year.

For more:
- Federaltimes.com article [1]