Education Networks of America, a managed Internet services provider targeting the education market, today said it is rolling out a hosted VoIP service for school districts, municipal and state agencies and libraries using Sylantro Systems’ Synergy platform.

The new offering, which will enable schools in particular to both upgrade their communications services and cut their costs, was first put into the market in April and is now in its implementation stage, with 30 deployments expected by the end of July, said Michael McKerley, director of research and development at ENA. The product availability was timed to coincide with the availability of federal E-rate fund for interconnected VoIP services, which begins in July, he said.

The other key timing factor was the aging of the PBXs that serve many school districts.

“Schools in the market we served are experiencing a failure of their current telecom infrastructure,” McKerley said. “They have kept their current PBXs far longer than most companies would, so there is a big push right now for schools to be able to upgrade their telecommunications.”

In addition to making school administration more efficient and cost-effective, new technology is needed to keep the curriculum up-to-date “and ensure students are ready for the 21^st century,” he said. “With ENA Connect, which we based on Sylantro’s servers, we have been able to provide a singular application that is hosted and managed by ENA and can meet all of telecom needs from the business side as well as do interesting things in classrooms.”

Classroom applications include video telephony, access to Microsoft Live and other applications, and distance learning via Web cams that is far less expensive than large dedicated video facilities, McKerley said. The hosted solution works for school districts because they are resource-constrained both financially and in terms of technical personnel to operate on-site systems, he added. In addition, a hosted solution enables school districts to start small and expand the hosted solution as resources become available or as existing systems age.

“They don’t have to make a major investment up front to buy the PBX ports for the entire system,” McKerley said. “If their budget allows them to do one building, they can do that now and then grow as they are able.”

ENA chose Sylantro to provide its hosted VoIP service in part because of its support for multiple computer operating systems, since Apple Macintosh computers and Linux servers are found more often in the education market than in the corporate market, he said. The service options with Sylantro also appealed to ENA, as did the SIP for Business standards support and the ability to interoperate with ENA’s existing infrastructure.

Moving to a hosted VoIP service will save most school districts considerable money on their telecom bills, while giving them greater functionality, McKerley said.

“When the superintendent can immediately drag and drop the numbers of six of his principals into a conference and immediately call them, that’s a feature they really like,” he said. “When you can show them easy-to-use features like this, they are very impressed.”