NSIT Voice and Data Rates for FY10
As of July 1st, 2009, NSIT restructured its voice and data rates. On June 25, University of Chicago Vice President and Chief Information Officer Greg Jackson sent the following notice regarding voice and data rates for fiscal year 2010 to the University Administrators. For additional information, visit our Voice and Data Rates FAQ page.
From: Greg Jackson
Date: June 25, 2009 10:04:26 EDT
Subject: NSIT voice and data rates for FY10To University administrators (please forward as appropriate):
With Trustee approval of the University's FY10 budget, and the approval of the Budget Office, I finally can confirm NSIT voice and data charges for the upcoming year. There will be no increase in basic rates. Departments should expect no change in total charges unless there are changes in the number of telephones, or in the use of special services.
For University departments outside Chicago Biomedicine, we are separating voice costs and charges from data costs and charges according to the plan approved a year ago. This reflects dramatic change in the relative importance and volume of data networking and voice telephony, and seeks to simplify how the University finances these interrelated services. Background material and further information on the plan are available at
http://nsit.uchicago.edu/groups/cio/rate-background-609.pdf.
For the University, the restructured telephone rates will include local calls, domestic long-distance calls, and basic voicemail. They will no longer include the cost of data networking. Data networking charges will instead be aggregated and charged to Executive-level accounts; at some point in the future they may be funded centrally. Special services (cell phones, international long distance, special telephones, leased lines, and so forth) will continue to be itemized and charged as they are now.
Whether Chicago Biomedicine charges will be separated this way is still under discussion. Until those discussions are complete, telephones in BSD and the Hospital will be charged as they are now, using current rate structures.
The monthly cost for a University telephone under the new arrangement, including most calls plus basic voicemail, is $27.92 for a single-line phone, $33.50 for a phone that can handle 2-4 lines, and $36.30 for a phone that can handle 6 lines. More complex equipment, such as large receptionist phones, costs more.
At the outset, the Executive-level data charge will be the difference between what a department paid for basic voice, voicemail, and data services in FY09 and the amount it would have paid for those services at the new voice rates. That is, the initial Executive data charge is set so that there is no projected change in a department's total payments for basic services between FY09 and FY10.
Let me use one Division's charges to illustrate. In FY09 that Division paid NSIT $811,000 in so-called "telephone" charges to individual accounts, including local and domestic long-distance calls, voicemail, the data-networking costs included in "telephone" charges, and special services. Barring changes in the number of phones or special services, NSIT will charge individual accounts in that Division $307,000 for their telephones, will charge individual accounts $45,000 for special services, and will charge the Division's central account $459,000 for its share of University data networking and services. These add up to the same $811,000. That is, although the structure of NSIT's charges to the Division will change, the total will not.
If a department adds or removes telephones, its basic voice charges will change accordingly. In addition, basic data charges will be adjusted annually, based on two factors. First, if the costs of providing data networking change, NSIT will ask the Budget Office to approve corresponding across-the-board changes in data charges to departments. Second, if the size of a department changes substantially, as measured by the students, faculty, academic and non-academic staff, and space associated with the department, then that department's data charges will grow or shrink proportionally.
Last updated: 7/6/09