Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google


Alabama School System UC To Streamline District Communications

  • By Sharleen Nelson
  • 07/17/13

In an effort to manage, simplify, and improve internal communications for teachers, parents, and students, Huntsville, Alabama's Madison County School System (MCSS) will implement an advanced communications networking technology platform.

For the district-wide telecommunications upgrade initiative, which covers 27 campus districts, MCSS selected Adtran's NetVanta unified communications (UC) platform. The NetVanta UC infrastructure, designed to accommodate growth and expansion of communications systems, will be deployed by MCSS in two phases.

During the first phase, MCSS administrative personnel and teachers will have access to full unified messaging, and superintendents and administrators will be able to create personal drag-and-drop assistants and use Find-me/Follow-me, two technologies that in conjunction allow incoming phone calls to be received at different locations on different phones. In addition, the district's outdated analog fax machines will be replaced with a fax server and a conference server will be installed to host system-wide school official calls. Finally, overhead and handset paging will be integrated into the existing systems at each campus.

The second phase will involve implementation of a simplified data collection and distribution system with real-time parent communications that include a number of features, including emergency alerts, absentee notifications, policy reminders, and bell schedule timers.

"When considering network solutions, Adtran was the obvious choice because the company offered a breadth of advanced capabilities and provided impeccable support throughout the deployment process," said Tommy Whitten, district technology coordinator for Madison County School System, in a prepared statement. "Adtran has enabled MCSS to not only lower costs while advancing technology and communications, but has provided the infrastructure our community will rely on as we grow our campuses and curriculum."

Madison County School District is located in Huntsville, AL and includes 28 schools that serve approximately 20,000 students in grades preK-12. The district has an annual budget of approximately $220 million.

For more information about Adtran, visit adtran.com.

About the Author

Sharleen Nelson is a freelance journalist based in Springfield, Oregon. She can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • digital brain integrating legal regulation and security interface

    Survey: Agentic AI Moves from Pilot Phase to Production, Bringing Governance to the Forefront

    A new report from Caylent, an AI-focused Amazon Web Services Premier Tier Services Partner, found that enterprises are already moving agentic AI beyond pilots and into production environments. At the same time, organizations are putting strict conditions around autonomy, making governance and control the next major challenge for enterprise AI adoption.

  • abstract smartphone translucent screen displaying AI interface

    Apple Unveils Redesigned Siri AI

    At its recent Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced Siri AI, a redesigned version of its voice assistant that Apple describes in its own announcement as "a profoundly more capable and personal assistant." The update is intended to make Siri more conversational, more context-aware, and more useful across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro.

  • large cloud icon with abstract code and interconnected polygons

    Report: Enterprise AI Workloads Are Tipping Toward Private Cloud

    Broadcom's 2026 Private Coud Outlook report says enterprise AI is moving from experimentation into production, with private cloud emerging as the preferred deployment environment for AI inference among surveyed organizations.

  • education funding and graduation symbols on wooden dice

    What Is the Education Freedom Tax Credit and How Will It Work?

    The federal Education Freedom Tax Credit (EFTC) is a new source of funding for education that could benefit 90% of students in states that have opted in to the program. However, some confusion and misconceptions exist surrounding details of the program, including which programs may qualify, how parents can apply for scholarships, and how public school students can benefit.