Wi-Fi VoIP a mobile phone killer for Edith Cowan

Steve Johnston

"We can potentially replace somewhere in the vicinity of upward of 200 mobile phones," he said, noting this could cut around 50 percent, or AU$200,000, off ECU's annual mobile bill.

First cabs off the rank for the pilot will be ECU's IT staff. "There will be 20 handsets in the initial trial, with plans to increase to 50-plus handsets," said Johnston.

ECU has tested vendor ZyXel's handsets, but others will also get a look-in, due to their potential to provide higher wireless speeds.

"We are going to trial some of the Nortel handsets which are 802.11g handsets, and that will improve the throughput," said Johnston. "We're also looking at some D-Link handsets, which are also 802.11g."

While ECU's mesh network allows 802.11g wireless connections at speeds of up to 54Mbps, if 802.11b hardware connects to the network, the access point concerned will drop to the lowest common denominator in terms of speed -- or 802.11b at up to 11Mbps.

ECU's wireless mesh network was built on Nortel hardware and was mainly operational from the middle of 2005, according to Johnston. Mesh networking allowes wireless access points to connect to each other as well as to devices like laptops, eliminating the need for any cabling.

The university has around 2,500 staff and 22,500 students.