Virginia Tech is planning a transition from the existing campus telephone and voice mail system to a new system which will enable the university community to access new and emerging technologies. The planned system and communications model is often referred to as Unified Communications.

The Unified Communications (UC) system will provide a foundation for the integration of real-time communications services like telephony, instant messaging, chat and desktop video conferencing with other non-real-time communications services such as email, voicemail and fax. 

CNS has received several UC proposals from industry-leading telecommunications vendors and system integrators in response to a request for proposal released in September 2010.  The RFP evaluation committee is working closely with Virginia Tech's Purchasing Department to identify UC solutions best suited to meet the communications, messaging, and collaboration needs of the university community.