Telecommunications Multi-Platform

IP telephony was introduced into regular operation at TUKE in 2011. Today, more than 1,800 Cisco IP phones and video conferencing devices are in use, all centrally managed by the Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM).

The IP telephony system is operated as a service within the robust TUNET network infrastructure, offering advanced functionalities compared to the previously used analog telephony, such as:

• TUKE Phone Directory (Yellow Pages) is accessible directly from the IP phone, allowing users to create personal contact lists with names and numbers.
• Direct calls to other universities participating in the ENUM project via the SANET academic network, bypassing the public telephone network.
• Voicemail enables users to receive and listen to voice messages later or via email.
• Speakerphone functionality.
• Three-way audio conferencing, allowing simultaneous participation of three callers in one call.

In addition to these services, users also benefit from Cisco Jabber for instant messaging and the Cisco Webex platform for web conferencing.

The Cisco Jabber service is used for instant messaging and for controlling IP phones within TUKE. It is available to all employees.

The Cisco Jabber client application is available for Windows and macOS desktop platforms, as well as for mobile platforms, iOS and Android.

Cisco Jabber allows users to send messages to signed-in contacts, control their IP phone from a computer (receive calls via PC, dial numbers from the PC, search and add contacts on the PC, etc.), participate in group chats that can be escalated into group calls, exchange files up to 50MB in size, share screens, and remotely control another PC via the shared screen.

At TUKE, the Cisco Webex service is available as a less demanding web conferencing solution with low technical requirements on the client side. It enables users to organize both audio and video conferences, share content (documents and applications), and record meetings.

Users can access Webex conferences from the TUNET university network or the Internet via the URL: ciscowebex.tuke.sk.

Cisco Webex offers several options for audio participation in a conference:

• Dialling in by phone (Call-In)
• Connecting via computer audio (Voice Communication using Computer)
• Receiving a call back from the Webex system to a selected phone number (Call-Me)
• Voice communication is fully integrated with the existing IP telephony system.

Part of the nationwide technical infrastructure of the National Telepresentation Infrastructure for the Support of Research, Development, and Technology Transfer (NTI) project is located and operated at the ICT.

Across the campuses of Slovak universities and the Slovak Academy of Sciences, a total of 208 teleconferencing rooms with varying levels of technical and software equipment have gradually been established. At TUKE, there are currently 27 teleconferencing rooms in operation.

Comprehensive information about this project is available on the National Telepresence Infrastructure website hosted on the web portal of the Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information.

The NTI archive contains recordings of live video conferences, presentations, and instructional materials.

Nowadays, email is predominantly used for sending documents. In some cases, especially for legal purposes, it is necessary to send or receive documents via fax.

The operation of analog fax devices was discontinued, along with the decommissioning of the analog telephone exchange. Analogue telephony has been replaced with IP telephony. The current solution was implemented as a part of the IP telephony project at TUKE, within which fax functionality has been integrated as a service of the TUNET computer network.

The NetFAX software solution enables authorized TUKE personnel to send and receive faxes directly from a personal computer. Incoming faxes are delivered as email attachments in PDF format to the recipient’s email address associated with the fax number. Outgoing faxes are sent by printing the document to the NetFAX virtual printer and then entering the target fax number. This method does not require any special external physical devices.

Physical documents that are not available in digital form must first be scanned into a digital format. The scanned document (image) can then be printed via the NetFAX virtual printer.