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UCL Telecoms and the Olympics

Just about everyone at UCL is concerned about their services and how they can be provided over the Olympics where London could be very busy.

Relating to Telephony, we often get asked if we can redistribute calls that come in to UCL offices back out to other destinations. Technically, it's possible but there are several reasons why we might not want to do that.

  1. Scale; If forwarding calls is used, even on a minor scale, then UCL may experience busy lines because each externally forwarded call would need to use two of our external trunks and possibly even more internal trunks, depending on where the call was made from and where it left UCL.
  2. This system is open to possible abuse, someone may divert their extension to an international number and invite family to call the local (UK) number, for example of one type of fraud.
  3. All forwarded calls would be charged to the department, if that's an international call then the department that owns the extension will have to pay for the forward section of the call. This will show on the monthly departmental call bill and will have to be charged back to the department. Calls from the desk to mobile are currently charged at around 9 pence per minute, calls from UCL to local and National numbers are around 1 pence per minute (can vary as cost depends on where the calls are made from).

What advice could telecoms add?

  • Use your signature file to advertise alternate UCL numbers or UCL Mobile numbers
  • Use a Voicemail personal message to give alternate UCL contact numbers or your availability (you can access the system remotely, guide here; http://www.ucl.ac.uk/isd/staff/network/telecoms/telephony/voicemail
  • See if you can find hot desk areas or work in other UCL offices nearer to home.
  • Investigate working from home with Managers on agreed work.

Further Information

UCL has taken some steps to advise and give dates on key stations and events surrounding our buildings. You can find out more here; http://www.ucl.ac.uk/olympics/faqs  or check out UCL Olympics web pages for more advice here; http://www.ucl.ac.uk/olympics

The Get Ahead of the Games Website has lots of help here; http://www.getaheadofthegames.com/travelinaffectedareas/city/london-public-transport.html