The University Record, April 23, 1996
Rough spots in 747 to 647 telephone exchange smooth out
The change to the 647 exchange has taken place with few problems, says Kari Gluski, the Information Technology Division’s (ITD) Product Area Manager for Collaboration and Communication.
“The main problem we discovered was due to some private phone companies that failed to quickly register the new exchange,” she says. “To solve this problem, ITD personnel worked closely with Ameritech to make sure these other phone companies made the necessary changes. Because of the effective team effort between ITD and Ameritech, this problem was fixed almost as quickly as it became apparent.
“ITD has ordered additional facilities that will provide for a 150 percent increase in the number of incoming calls that can be handled by this new exchange,” Gluski adds. “These additional facilities will increase our capacity to handle calls on this exchange, which is already experiencing heavy use. They should also help us prevent future capacity problems.”
As part of its ongoing effort to make the conversion to the new 647 telephone exchange as easy as possible, ITD has updated the University’s telephone number databases, changing 747 numbers to the new 647 exchange. This action will save nearly 5,000 people from needing to submit change of address forms. It will also make it unnecessary for the staff records office to process all of these changes.
“ITD is trying to handle most of the effort that comes with converting from an existing telephone exchange to a newly established number,” says Telecommunications Supervisor Callie Jeran. “Changes to University directories and Ameritech white pages directories will occur automatically. However, the automatic changes to the new 647 exchange may not be reflected in directories that do not depend on the University databases, such as those directories published locally within departments.”
Even though ITD is automatically making changes to reflect the conversion of 747 phone numbers to the new 647 telephone exchange, listed below are the situations where users need to take individual action to change their telephone listing:
Individuals who have selected the “don’t update” option in their X.500 directory listing must update their own listing.
Change forms must be submitted whenever new phone numbers are assigned.
All yellow page listings must be handled separately.
Changes must be made in departmental or other locally prepared directories which don’t rely on U-M databases.
