VoIP myth busters: using internet technology to deliver voice service has finally become ready for prime time. Learn the truths behind the myths surrounding this technology—and why more institutions are signing on

University Business, March, 2006 by John Burton

FIVE YEARS AGO, A TECHNOLOGY PROFESSIONAL couldn't turn around in a crowded room without bumping into a vendor selling a hot new technology called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Each year brought the same promises of how VoIP would revolutionize the delivery of phone service, replacing expensive and cumbersome traditional phone service delivered by the "Baby Bells" with a cheap alternative.

Better sound quality was promised, but the reality was static and choppy connections. So most organizations wisely stayed away from the new technology.

Things change, but the college or university now considering adapting VoIP technology still confronts a series of popular myths. Here, University Business debunks the top 10 myths and uncovers the realities of a technology that has finally begun to be deployed on campuses large and small.

MYTH NO. 1: As long as IT staff members understand networks, they can implement VoIP.

REALITY: Implementation likely requires outside help, and IT staffers had best be spending their time learning how their jobs will be changing after VoIP comes to campus.

Moving from a separate voice-based phone system to one in which voice and data are shared over the data network does eliminate some complexity from the systems. However, the new hybrid network will require some new skills, and therefore a degree of retraining of IT staff may be necessary.

With VoIP, "you get the synergy of being able to use your existing Ethernet network and fiber optic networks to provide telephony," says John Bryan, vice president for Information Technology and Services at Clayton State University in Morrow, Ga. When tech leaders there adopted IP telephony, they didn't have to do much new hiring and training. In fact, Bryan notes, "We've been able to eliminate one whole type of technology, and that's a tremendous savings in terms of cost and support."

Though they understand the technology, IT staff typically don't have voice expertise, explains Todd Grafton, an engineer with CDW Government, a technology products and services provider. A person trained in data networks may not think to ask certain questions, such as how direct-dial numbers might affect the arrangement. But most vendors will provide training courses to their customers as part of the implementation process.

Chip Towle, senior IT director at Boston's Wheelock College, says the amount of retraining needed for his campus' switchover was less of a problem than ensuring that the campus' Nortel data network was properly configured to support voice as an application. In March 2003, he deployed VoIP phones, and today 95 percent of Wheelock's faculty and staff use VoIP. Training presented no problem, and Towle reports that he has no traditional phone technology staff on campus.

MYTH NO. 2: VoIP is free.

REALITY: VoIP can be less expensive than traditional phone service, but free it is not.

"Every now and then, somebody is under the impression that if they deploy a VoIP solution for their office, they will end up with free phone service," says Grafton. That is not true, he adds, but the "base price of a VoIP platform is vendor-determined; there are more expensive and cheaper ones." Also, a lot of institutions of higher education are finding it makes sense to switch to VoIP as part of a larger overhaul of their data networks, which blurs the distinctions about what costs are for what purpose.

But that's not to say that there are not some significant savings from VoIP once it has been installed.

A return on investment for Clayton State's VoIP system will take five years, reports Bryan, and better yet, ongoing operating costs are much lower. He says that after five years, the VoIP system will cost half of what it would have cost to keep operating a traditional phone service, known as plain old telephone service (POTS).

Russ Beard, director of Information and Communication Services at Big Bend Community College in Moses Lake, Wash., estimates that his campus' VoIP system costs are "almost identical" to the institution's former phone system. Yet, when he adds in all of the services and features (such as caller ID and voicemail) that are standard in VoIP, the balance tips in favor of the newer technology.

Towle finds VoIP to be much cheaper, in part because when he upgrades one part of his network, he is upgrading his data and voice application capacity at the same time. "Voice is [simply another] application running on a data network today," he says.

The changing economics of the telephony industry are also working to the advantage of VoIP systems. With the increased competition in the telecommunications industry since it was deregulated, users can get competitive bids and lower prices for services.

"Long distance used to be a profit center in higher education," says Bryan. "When there was no competition and the phone companies were regulated, the economic model made sense to have centralized phone companies that had very expensive switches to provide expensive long-distance and local services. It was long-distance services that many colleges and universities resold to their students and [departments] and made a profit on, so they could afford to buy a large switch and get the economies of scale to run it themselves."