Dive Brief:
- The use of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) instead of traditional phone lines is becoming increasingly popular in schools looking to cut costs.
- VoIP requires existing high-speed internet connections for functional use, something that not all schools currently have.
- Using VoIP can save schools money, since the cost can be significantly cheaper than maintaining old phone service and hard-to-replace vintage phone hardware.
Dive Insight:
The State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) currently recommends that school connection speeds should be around 1,000 Mbps (equivalent to 1 gigabit) per 1,000 users by 2017-18 in order for VoIP connections to function best. That's a tall order for most states, even those considered education leaders.
This fall, EducationSuperHighway's "2015 State of the States" report found that 77% of districts have Internet speeds of 100 kbps per student.
And with VoIP services like Vonage, a simple monthly fee enables clients to have digital voicemail, multiple phone lines, and multiple phone numbers. An online dashboard makes adjusting settings and checking usage and call records simple. Yet VoIP connections are vulnerable to connectivity issues that can sound, on the phone, similar to cell phone issues, with occasional dropped calls and static.
Still, for cash-strapped districts, the potential savings might be worth any potential setbacks, especially since E-rate funding for traditional phone lines has been scaled back significantly.
