VOIP

An internal loan repaid by a student technology fee allowed the University of Arizona to accelerate a wireless Internet and voice over wireless (VoFi) project. In 16 months, the UA was able to deploy an 802.11a/g network supporting VoFi covering over 7M square feet of indoor and outdoor space.

Various financial models that were looked at will be presented and discussed in great detail with input from the audience. UMB's evaluation of vendor solutions and subsequent decisions will be presented and justified. Analysis of monthly rates, construction and retrofit costs, modifications to billing systems, and coordination with facilities staff will be covered.

A handful of public-interest groups have filed a petition (PDF) with the Federal Communications Commission asking it to prevent cellular service providers from blocking text messages from advocacy groups and advertisers. Filed by Public Knowledge, the Consumers Union, EDUCAUSE, Free Press, and four other groups, the petition cites a couple of recent examples of text-message blocking by cellular carriers.

Facing an aging telephone copper plant and rising provider costs, Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania implemented a multicampus VoIP system to save more than $1 million over a five-year period while substantially upgrading functionality in the process. This presentation will outline the entire VoIP conversion process, from the planning stages through funding, implementation, and training.

"IHEs are at different points when it comes to VoIP, but many see the same benefits, and face the same challenges."

The State University of New York (SUNY) Cortland voice and data communications systems were outdated and operating at capacity, with no expansion capabilities. The private branch exchange (PBX) voice communication system was nearly two decades old and was at 99 percent capacity. The six-year-old 155 Mbps ATM backbone flat data network with 10-megabit shared links to the desktop had no redundancy capability and required components that were no longer supported by the vendor. Traditionally data and voice networks have been separate, requiring two different infrastructures with separately trained staff to manage them. For voice communication equipment changes and service moves, an outside vendor performed costly onsite manual wiring changes involving untimely scheduling requirements. The existing network did not support 4-digit dialing and would almost immediately become overwhelmed by multicasting (communication between a single sender and multiple receivers). SUNY Cortland wanted to improve the system and more effectively serve students and parents calling for information about registration, financial aid, and other issues.

The future is set for convergence—for the integration of the communications and computing resources and services that seamlessly traverse multiple infrastructures and deliver content to multiple platforms or appliances. Campus IT organizations need to understand the trends in order to structure their services as the future evolves.