Voice over IP (VoIP) has been infiltrating campus networks, but more like stray weeds in an unattended garden than like a well-planned crop. Trouble is, in most instances, moving directly from a PBX or Centrex service to VoIP represents a shift too costly and dramatic for many academic institutions to undertake. Instead, schools have been deploying a few VoIP connections here and there, and gradually growing those numbers. While many organizations now have at least some VoIP phones in place, most are still in the process of making the transition from traditional to IP-based phone services. Academic institutions are interested in VoIP for a number of reasons: The technology is simpler to deploy and manage than traditional phone services. Schools can consolidate their voice and data networking chores by running both on a converged network and managing them with single set of tools. Plus, VoIP enables organizations to deploy modern applications such as unified communications (UC) and video phone calls. Yet, while VoIP is enticing, it also presents institutions with many challenges. Consequently, prices for these systems start in the six-figure range and can quickly shoot past the $1 million mark--and keep going. As a result, academic institutions have been moving to VoIP at an incremental pace rather than as a more dramatic "overnight" rollout. Still, the potential benefits of moving to VoIP have sparked real interest.