VoIP could offer VCU community new telephone service options

Voice over Internet Protocol, also called VoIP, enables people to make telephone calls through an Internet connection instead of a telephone line. It could be the next telephone service available for VCU students and administrators.

“What you would get is a better quality of service,” said Mark Willis, assistant vice president for administrative information technology. He said VoIP offers many conveniences.

For instance, administrators and students could check their voice-mails and e-mails in the same package and could call friends and family via telephone handsets or through microphones and speakers connected to their computers. They could also speak to and watch someone on video through the computer similar to teleconferencing.

Some students including Kathleen Miltner, a sophomore nursing major, cited their concerns about learning to use the technology.

“I think it’s an interesting idea,” Miltner said. “Not too sure how it would work, especially since everybody is used to using regular phones, so it’s something they’d have to teach students how to use.”

On the other hand, students such as Joseph Norris, a junior English major, suggested learning the new system could come easily.

“A lot of the students would adapt pretty well,” Norris said.

Henry Rhone, vice provost for student affairs and enrollment services, said he welcomes the idea of introducing technology into VCU.

“Students are always pushing the edge in technology, and sometimes we play a little catch-up because each year each freshman class that comes in has a better knowledge of technology and comfort in using it,” he said. “I think the university should be responsive to that.”

Willis and others recommending this change first must submit a proposal to the several budget committees that include the university’s oversight committee and another at the state level review.

William Jones, director of VCUnet, the university’s telecommunications division that provides telephone service for on-campus students, said if the plans were approved, changes could begin in the summer 2006. Administrative offices, he said, would be the first to have the service, which later could be provided to the dormitories.