The Office of Information Technology will be converting UW-Platteville’s phone system from analog to Voice-over Internet Protocol over a three year period.

VOIP is a system that allows phones to use Ethernet cords instead of using telephone cords, meaning buildings will not have to be rewired.

“It’s a move to utilize modern technology,” John Krogman, associate vice chancellor for Information Services, said. “But we believe in the long haul it will be a good cost savings for the campus.”

Most of what the new system will provide will be invisible to many of its users. The only visible difference is that the phone does not use a standard phone cord.

“For someone who just wants to make phone calls, for them it will just be transparent. They can just use the phone on their desk; it will just be using the network instead of the telephone line,”
Krogman said. “Lots of companies have gone over to Voice-over IP because, almost without exception, it’s cheaper in the long run.”

The cost will be cheaper because of the mobility that VOIP grants.

“I can unplug my phone and plug it into any place on campus, and if my number gets a call, that number doesn’t have to get routed, it goes straight to my phone,” Krogman said.

There are some phones on campus that will not change. Phones in residence halls will not have that mobility. Fax lines all across campus, emergency phones in elevators and some courtesy phones in the hallways will be traditional phones also.

“This change is only going to affect staff and faculty,” Dan Dargel, manager of campus wide networks, said. “It’s not going to be in the residence halls in the near future.”

The switch also has some negatives. The phones will be using the campus network to send and receive calls. If the network goes down, the phones will be down as well. Also, in the event of a power outage, the phones will need to be placed on a battery backup system to allow for network connectivity, provided the network is functional.

“There aren’t many drawbacks,” Matthew Nickasch, a junior at UW-P and a network assistant for OIT, said. “It was scary in the ‘90s when it was new, but now in 2007 the technology is different and more advanced.”

Also some of the things that the phone company did will now have to be done by Information Services.

“Now the faculty and staff will have to let us know when they change offices because we still have to maintain the 911 database,” Krogman said. “If emergency services needs to look up a person, they can dispatch assistance to the person’s location.”

Another reason that the university is switching over is because of economics.

“We are updating everything with all new equipment,” Nickasch said. “It got to the point that buying replacement parts was the same as buying an IP phone.”

The costs of the new phones will not burden students because the cost was incorporated into the Information Services budget.

“The main purpose is that with the new construction on campus, we don’t have to rededicate wiring,” Dargel said. “It’s no cheaper but it has a lot more benifits from a manager’s perspective.”

Any other cost increases will be offset because there will be no charges for switching phone lines when offices move.

“Universities are a little bit slower to get on it, especially in the state of Wisconsin, because historically, the state has been able to negotiate very low telephone costs,” Krogman said. “What really threw UW-P over the hump, and we will be the first campus to roll out VOIP in its entirety across it, is the fact that we have lots of old phones that have to be replaced anyway.”