Starting in fall 2005, AU will depend more on student cell phone use and stop offering traditional phone service in the residence halls, according to Julie Weber, executive director of Housing and Dining Programs.
Initial capital savings will be in the "range of $1 [million] to $1.2 million, with operating savings in the range of $85,000 to $125,000 per year," said Carl Whitman, executive director of e-operations at AU.
However, although AU will switch to a wireless system, the phone services currently available for students will not change dramatically, Weber said.
The biggest change will be that local calls can no longer be made through the school's system except through special phones placed on each residence hall floor.
Residence hall students will still be able to make calls to other students from their rooms. Also, students can make long distance calls using the University's long distance provider, Pay Tec, or a traditional calling card.
Students with cell phones will be required to register their number with AU "so that [students] can be reached in an emergency and for university business," according to the Housing and Dining Programs Web site. Providing a phone number is already a requirement of a student's housing lease, Weber said.
For students who choose not to buy a phone for their room, one or two communal phones will be installed on each floor for local calls.
Pamphlets distributed to students last week announced the changes, stating that "the increasing use of cellular phones has provided a significant opportunity for AU to save money."
AU's current telephone system, called a PBX (private branch exchange) system, was installed when the residence halls were constructed in the 1960s, making the system difficult to maintain.
"To maintain the current phone system is becoming prohibitively expensive, if not impossible," Weber said. "There is nothing to replace the PBX system, except a very expensive system that would go obsolete. When you look at [national data] of people who are giving up the landlines in their homes and going to all cell phones ... that is probably the telephone service of the future. We're not ready for that, yet, but this system is dying."
An example of how the aging system affected students comes from the late '90s, when a flood in Letts Hall damaged a switch in the phone system. Since the switches are no longer manufactured, "the only way to get one is to find somebody, in most cases, another university who got rid of the system and kept the switches, and buy the part," Weber explained. "The switches simply don't exist."
Some students said they already rely on their cell phones.
"I generally use my cell phone because it's easier to get in contact with my friends," said Erica LeMaster, a sophomore in the School of Communication. "Most of my friends who have cell phones don't have local numbers, and I'm already paying for the service on my phone and I get free long distance."
Though many students hope that tuition rates will decrease because of the service change, Weber explains it is not a question of saving, but a "question of not spending."
"The cost savings associated with the change in residence hall telephone service are unrelated to tuition," Whitman said. "The primary source of cost savings resulting from this decision is the avoidance of the future capital expense of replacing the telephone system serving the residence halls as it reaches the age when it requires replacement."
Although AU is partnered with AT&T/Cingular and T-Mobile, some students, mainly Verizon and Sprint users, complain about "dead zones" in and around the campus.
"The guarantee from [AT&T/Cingular and T-Mobile] is that there are no dead spots on campus," Weber said. "If Verizon is interested in doing what Cingular, [AT&T] and T-Mobile did, then there would be no more dead spots [on campus]."
However, the decision to install a tower on campus is up to the provider. Weber said that the greatest cell phone complaints on campus are from Verizon users.
"To ensure high quality cellular coverage within the residence halls and other buildings on campus, cellular carriers must invest in equipment that is dedicated to serve the AU community via our in-building radio distribution system," Whitman said. "Cingular [including AT&T] and T-Mobile have been the only cellular firms to date that have been willing to make this investment, and also to agree to offer special discounts to AU students for equipment and rate plans."
Although AU has "discussed participation in our system at various times with Verizon, Nextel and Sprint ... none of these carriers have been willing to meet our service requirements," Whitman said. "AU would be delighted to have any or all of them make the same commitment to our students that Cingular and T-Mobile have, but there is no immediate prospect of that happening."
Park Bethesda residents, who have the University phone service, do not have wireless capability and are not currently affected by phone changes.
For more information, visit www.american.edu/ocl/ housing or call x3370.
