Like a lot of other construction companies, White-Spunner Construction of Mobile, Ala., is working hard to be more environmentally friendly in creating new buildings, looking to earn LEED Certification, based on the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building Rating System.

As part of that effort, White-Spunner turned to its telecommunications provider, Callis Communications, to seek more energy-efficient ways of delivering telecom services within the new 45,000-foot headquarters building the company planned to construct.

What Callis came up with was a solution based on 802.3af technology that powers VoIP phones located throughout the building by a central source, eliminating the need to plug each individual phone into a nearby power outlet. A single power source enables redundant network switches, the phone network and the data network. Because the phone service is hosted on one common telephone switch that feeds into a private network running back to the Callis Network Operations Center, there is also no on-site PBX, eliminating the 20 amps to 30 amps of power it would consume.

“As a result, we were able to reduce White-Spunner’s energy needs for their telecom service by at least 50%,” said Dean Parker, CEO of Callis, a facilities-based CLEC that offers advanced voice and data solutions for small to mid-sized businesses that don’t have their own IT departments.

This solution also reduced the costs of battery backups, said Debbie Geiger, communications director at White-Spunner.