Phoning Home From School

Dartmouth College in Hanover, Hew Hampshire has invested in a system to let students route phone calls over the Internet.
Interestingly enough, my alma mater, the University of Guelph is just about to do this as well. The Globe will next month publish a ranking of Canadian universities a la the Maclean's ranking. In addition to various overall rankings, the Globe's system also ranked Canada's universities based on technology use and adoption. I'm sworn to secrecy as far as the ranking goes (the Globe will reveal all in October) but I can tell you Guelph did very well.
For that special section, I wrote up an article on universities and technology use in Canada and talked to folks at Guelph and elsewhere about their plans to use and deploy new technology. For this year, Guelph and many other universities are building wi-fi networks all over campus. Next year at Guelph, though, the administration is spending millions to switch the entire campus phone system to a VoIP system. Numbers will be portable. Your phone will find you if you can find a device with an IP number. I'm told by Guelph and by some equipment vendors in this market that Guelph's will be the largest VoIP installation of its kind so far in Canada.

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