Two out of three colleges are at minimum creating pilot projects of Internet telephone systems, but few have rolled out the technology campuswide, according to a survey released this month by the Association for Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education.
Voice over Internet Protocol, as the technology is often called, uses computer networks to carry telephone calls. Most VoIP systems use handsets that look the same as traditional telephones, but they plug into an Ethernet jack instead of a telephone connection.
Sixty-two percent of the colleges surveyed said they plan to expand their VoIP networks wilean the next 18 months. The survey was conducted in April at a meeting of the group, which represents officials who handle voice communications on campuses.
Few of the officials surveyed cited security as a concern in this year’s survey. That’s a big change from 2006, when a similar survey found 77 percent of the group’s members were concerned about the security of Internet telephone systems.—Jeffrey R. Young