This is the first article in a two-part series that will explore the landline phone use and its demise in the wake of the cell phone. This installment will focus on the landline services offered in Tufts' residence halls; the second piece, which will be published tomorrow, will examine how the trends in wireless communications will affect students post-college.
In a time when landline phones have become nearly as archaic as pagers, people of all ages have been converting to cell phones as their primary means of communication.
And as an increasing number of young adults become entirely mobile-dependent, some universities have reacted by eliminating landlines from dorms, and in some cases, allocating the extra money to the expansion of wireless networks.
The University of Nebraska, Lincoln, for example, has recently announced its decision to phase out landline phones, and eventually remove them entirely from dorm rooms.
According to a recent piece published by U.S. News & World Report, land lines have traditionally cost the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, up to $700,000 a year. For the 2008 fall semester, however, the school plans to cut down this service by two-thirds, and by the start of the 2009, Lincoln won't be signing any more phone contracts for housing. With the money saved from phone lines, the school plans to spend $900,000 on wireless Internet.
At Tufts, though, landlines have remained a fixture in dorm rooms, primarily due to safety concerns.
As of now, all of Tufts' approximately 2,250 dorm rooms are equipped with a landline phone jack, phone service and voice messaging at no additional charge to students, provided the phone calls are local.
Manager of Tufts' Voice Communications Services John McKeigue said that these options became free four years ago.
"The university, in the interest of public safety, felt that they wanted to provide the service at no additional cost to the students," McKeigue said.
McKeigue went on to explain the safety benefits of keeping landline phones in the dorms, rather than just having students rely on their cell phones.
"I think one of the major stumbling blocks at the moment is that cell phones don't provide Public Safety with location information in the event of an emergency, whereas if you call from a landline, they know the address and they can respond appropriately," he said. "With a cell phone, people really don't know where you are."
Along with the safety assurances students get from being able to dial out on a landline phone, many also benefit from being able to receive calls in the event of an emergency.
"Though it is probably a less apparent factor, when you're in an integrated university system, if Public Safety wants to send the students a broadcast message, they will only send a message to the people in their system; if you're not on the campus service, you're not going to get the message," McKeigue said.
But McKeigue said Send Word Now, Tufts' emergency alert system, has factored in the potential for low landline usage and also uses SMS messaging to notify students. During a test last week, Send Word Now blasted out 8,929 SMS messages in around four minutes.
In addition to safety concerns, there are also fiscal reasons — albeit increasingly outdated ones — that have accounted for the university's decision to leave landlines intact. When university officials contact students on their cell phones, they often have to make long-distance calls; landlines, on the other hand, have local numbers.
But McKeigue said this was more of a problem in past years. "Now, calling has become so cheap, it isn't so much a factor, but it [was] in the earlier years."
Although Tufts switched to a non fee-based service four years ago, the move was not financially hard on the university, which may primarily explain why removing the jacks from dorms on the Hill would be futile.
"The former company was called Campus Link, and it was fairly expensive," McKeigue said. "When the contract [with Campus Link] expired, we decided not to renew it; however, the platform that Campus Link used was basically left intact and had been paid for, so we simply [kept] it. Our operating cost to provide the service is really quite low."
