"We want to build communities!“ is the underlying motivation for the project "PolyPhone" according to its head Armin Brunner (2). Because today students and staff no longer only work from their offices, lecture halls or computer rooms but also – and increasingly – from home or from any spot in the world. Brunner wants to provide an instrument that supports these and other flexible patterns of working.

More than just voice-over Internet calls

This can be achieved, for example, by using Internet telephone calls. "The technology is available–soon we'll be able to offer it to all students and staff at ETH," said Brunner. The advantages lie not only in the increased mobility it offers, but also in added value features. "Because the "PolyPhone“ project is more than just using the Internet to make voice over calls (voice over IP). It comprises an entire and integrated means of communication," as Brunner went on to explain. It included new services like voice, video, presence and instant messaging. These can be linked to services already on offer, such as e-mail and digital diaries, so that mail or telephone calls can automatically be forwarded to a pre-programmed location during holidays, part-time work, meetings or lectures.

Diagram of the PolyPhone architecture, for example the handling of a PolyPhone user's call to an ETH number. large

"No fun!"

Thanks to the sip.edu project (see box) already today computer calls to various US universities are transmitted via the Internet instead of telephone lines. ETH was the first European university to introduce this possibility and the project is shortly to be extended. People who use SIP save the university telephone costs. "But that wasn't our primary goal," said Brunner "there's no fun in that!"

Apart from vocal communication many of the appliances that SIP targets also support video communication and instant messaging. large

A complement and not a substitute

The "PolyPhone" project is not intended as a substitute for regular telephone calls, made over fixed lines, but rather to complement them. This is because telephone calls made over the Internet carry no guarantee of availability or quality– since there is no absolute control over the network. In addition, because of the diversity of the targeted appliances, only a limited support is possible. "In this project we wanted to get away from the idea of always wanting to have everything under control,“ says Brunner in recognition of the experimental philosophy of the Internet era. "We must concentrate more on the new needs of the community." Even when these happen to be just games or P2P downloads.

Armin Brunner in Showcase demonstrating a WLAN telephone for the ETH wireless net. "I can't fully recommend this technology yet.“ large

Life-long networks

The wider vision of the "PolyPhone" project however is not only to enable live Internet communication but also to extend the communications infrastructure spatially. "We want to carry the networks from student days out into the world," says Brunner, trying to put the bigger goal into words. "When a member of staff or a student leaves ETH he or she will keep a life-long identification number, an e-mail address and an entire network of contacts that can serve the future career.“ The ETH Campus will thus also find temporal extension.

Vision of the Showcase poster: A personal PolyPhone number for life for all at ETH. large

"We're the first university in the world with such a project," says Brunner, visibly pleased. Queries had already arrived from MIT indicating intentions of copying the project. But at the moment there were still a few legal problems to clear up in order to include ETH alumni. Brunner is nevertheless confident that the pilot phase of the PolyPhone project can be set in motion mid-May. Watch this space!