Universities and VoIP
While some universities are banning Skype, others will be offering students a package of broadband Internet, IPTV, and VoIP. This will come due to a contract between Ubiquity Software and Inuk Networks. Using Ubiquity’s SIP-based platform, students will be able to make phone calls from soft phones. (Think they’ll want to watch live concerts?) Calls to PSTN/ mobiles will be routed through Global Crossing. See LightReading for more details.
Check out Garrett Smith’s site Smith on VoIP to see why universities are banning Skype. Garrett gives a breakdown of his college phone bill costs and thus gives some interesting insight into the yearly revenues school dorms generate from telecom and Internet services, as well as the cost and type of infrastructure needed to handle usage. (The public university I went to has free access on campus, but I don’t know about the dorms and residences. I also don’t know what percentage of tuition pays for the infrastructure.) With some very simple math, he concludes that some (most?) universities and colleges would not want students to use free communication because of how much revenue they stand to lose as a result.
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January 30th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
I think the comments may be incorrect in regard to revenue generation of PSTN services as many universities are simply seeing internal PSTN services under utilized and cost prohibitive to not only the students but the institution.
Therefore many Universities are looking at INUK and other providers to provide a greater level of functionality and service provision to which there residents and students require.
In the UK many universities including UKERNA are concerned about the use of Skype. This is because Skype software uses the host PCs as repeater or super node. The high bandwidth availability and number of hosts within the UK academic network make it an ideal home for supernodes. This has led The Joint Academic Network and many other Internet providers to prohibit or limit Skype network traffic.
However we do recommend students use VOIP services we recommend and number of free solutions as they are a hassle-free way to make phone calls and a essential pastoral service which allow students to freely communicate with friends and relatives during the course of their studies.
For example if you’re calling a mate who also has a softphone from the same supplier installed installed, you can make voice and video calls FREE of charge. Additionally some providers offer benefits of higher quality, richer, more natural Hi-Definition sound quality.