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College Students Turn Away From Landlines

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sun Feb 13, 2005 10:02 AM
from the along-with-everyone-else dept.
Communications IT
prostoalex writes "You're as likely to find a landline in a college dorm as you're an old typewriter, according to this Washington Post article on MSNBC. While roughly 30% of college students had a cell phone 5 years ago, more than 90% have them today, resulting in student directories including out-of-state numbers instead of 4-digit extensions. More trivia on college students: 90% own a PC, 65% have broadband, 62% own a stereo system, 74% have a DVD player, 55% have a gaming system. What the Washington Post article also hints at, is possible tuition hikes due to the landlines dropped so quickly. "Six or seven years ago, telephones on campus were a cash cow," said Glenn Gaslin of Morrisville State College in New York."
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  • 90%? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Omniscientist (806841) <god@@@omniscientist...net> on Sunday February 13 2005, @10:06AM (#11659105) Homepage
    I have not met one person here (University of Minneapolis) who does not own a PC. I also have not met anyone else here who runs an OS other than Windows.

  • old news? (Score:3, Informative)

    by headisdead (789492) on Sunday February 13 2005, @10:07AM (#11659116) Homepage Journal
    In the UK, this has been the case for years. When I moved into Halls, there wasn't even a land-line phone available.

  • Stupid business (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Quasar1999 (520073) on Sunday February 13 2005, @10:08AM (#11659121) Journal
    I hate businesses that assume that you will buy certain services from them because they deem them 'essential', and when all of a sudden you don't, they jack up the price of the services you still do buy from them...

    In this case, tuition will go up because they stop making money on landline sales??? How about my damned cable company (or phone company) that charges me an extra $10 a month because I just want a highspeed internet connection but don't want their cable offerings or long distance plan?

    How can they get away with this BS? It's like those computer stores that 'cash discount' their prices... Play on words to get around rules that prevent them from jacking up the price because you wanna pay by credit card...

    Aren't there laws against this sorta crap?
    • Stupid business indeed. However, the reason why they do get away with it is that consumers don't bitch at the Better Business Bureau or to their representatives. Charter Communications is known for this. Sometimes they do take it away from your bill if you are loud enough. Most times they don't, and the tech support will tell you that they do it because they can. They don't even hide. As for phones, mobile phones are more convenient. How much time do students stay in dorms besides sleeping and fuckin

    • Re:Stupid business (Score:5, Insightful)

      by timmyf2371 (586051) <tim AT timfarrell DOT co DOT uk> on Sunday February 13 2005, @10:15AM (#11659165)
      I hate businesses that assume that you will buy certain services from them because they deem them 'essential', and when all of a sudden you don't, they jack up the price of the services you still do buy from them...

      In this case, tuition will go up because they stop making money on landline sales??? How about my damned cable company (or phone company) that charges me an extra $10 a month because I just want a highspeed internet connection but don't want their cable offerings or long distance plan?

      I'm not a business expert by any means, but as far as I understand the idea of business it is to have more income than your expenditure. If increasing prices are the only way of doing this, then so be it.

      How can they get away with this BS? It's like those computer stores that 'cash discount' their prices... Play on words to get around rules that prevent them from jacking up the price because you wanna pay by credit card...

      Credit card merchant services typically charge around 3% to process a credit card transaction, so retailers must build this cost into the final cost of the product they are selling. Would you prefer no cash discount is offered to customers who want to pay for a particular product using cash?

            • If you actually run a company and have that sort of problem with employees, you're clearly doing something wrong. (Yes, I do run a company and manage several employees.) hints: accounting processes and methodologies aren't just for bean counters, and small business is as much about finding the right person for a role as it is about watching the bottom line.

              And as a consumer, if I cannot pay cash, I will go somewhere else. I rarely buy on plastic, for several reasons. That includes the time I purchased a c

        • It's all about the money.

          I attended Purdue University. One year I lived in Carey Quad, which happned to border the football stadium. Our parking lot was pimped out as premium parking during home games, so the actual residents got kicked out (ticketed, otherwise) so the alums could park.

          I lost count at how many poor lot attendants I ripped a new one each Saturyday morning when I'd tried to park in the lot that I paid extra for (above and beyond standard room & board). I finally pitched such a fit

    • How can they get away with this BS? It's like those computer stores that 'cash discount' their prices... Play on words to get around rules that prevent them from jacking up the price because you wanna pay by credit card...

      I am with the previous poster. Credit cards are a convenience for the customer, in which the business is charged about 3% for Visa or Mastercard, another percent or two for Discover, which is yet another fee. They make businesses pay for it because they knew the cards wouldn't take of
    • How about my damned cable company (or phone company) that charges me an extra $10 a month because I just want a highspeed internet connection but don't want their cable offerings or long distance plan?

      I'm in that boat. I don't have broadband because of it.

      The reasoning with cable TV is they get away with it because they can play the broadband card to pull people away from satelite TV. In my area Comcast's penalty is $15, not $10 with a promise to increase soon. The phone company uses it to pull peopl
    • Actually, it's because the credit card companies double-dip; they charge you for using the credit card, and they charge the business for running it through. The businesses have decided to just pass the cost on to the customers. Don't feel bad; it's been this way for a long time in the rest of the world, because businesses outside of America thought it was a bunch of crap from the get-go.

      As for the cable companies? Yeah, they're pretty much just screwing you. :)

    • Re:Stupid business (Score:4, Informative)

      by ivan256 (17499) * on Sunday February 13 2005, @11:18AM (#11659561)
      It's like those computer stores that 'cash discount' their prices... Play on words to get around rules that prevent them from jacking up the price because you wanna pay by credit card...

      Those computer stores likely have to pay as much as $0.25 plus 5% of the purchase price as a fee to the credit card company. If they wanted to charge the same price for cash or credit, they're have to raise the price for cash purchases. Online computer sales from small vendors are lucky to have an 8-9% margin, so having to give away 5% to your credit card company would mean they wouldn't be able to stay in business.

      What you should actually be upset about is contracts that credit card companies force on merchants that prevent the merchant from passing on the savings to you when you pay with cash. It's not too long ago that you used to be able to get a 3-4% discount on gasoline if you paid with cash. Now you pay the higher price either way because the credit card company tells the gas station owner that he can't accept credit cards unless the price is the same cash or credit. The same goes for PayPal. Sellers aren't allowed to pass the PayPal fees on to the buyer... For fixed price items this means the price is higher wether you use PayPal or not.

      The situation is even worse with the new Debit Visa cards. The fees are higher for the merchant if the customer doesn't use their PIN than they are for regular Visa charges, but smaller merchants have no leverage to negotiate a contract that lowers those fees, and Visa won't allow the merchant to accept regular Visa cards but not Debit Visa cards. The merchant is also not allowed to charge you more to use the debit card as a credit card, so the merchant is forced to raise all of their prices or to eat the fee.

      It's the credit card companies that are evil... Not the stores that figure out a way to pass the savings on to you when you prevent them from paying credit card transaction fees.
        • My advice...stay away from credit cards except for absolute emergencies. Accepting a credit card these days is like shackling yourself and giving them the key.

          Or you can just pay off your balance every month, which means you don't pay interest, but do get some level of fraud protection and often cash back.

  • Welcome to the Undergraduate Experience (Score:3, Informative)

    by MacBorg (740087) on Sunday February 13 2005, @10:10AM (#11659131)
    I'm a freshman at BU and on a floor of 45 students, there is ONE landline (owned by a non-US student), everyone has computers - and a few of us have more than one. There is roughly a 5:1 windows to Mac ratio... although it's a little squewed because a couple of us have desktops and powerbooks. Everyone, unless they're non-US residents, has cell phones. Over 50% of us have iPods, use iTunes and share music. Yeah, we're hardware-laden students... and I love it!

  • Technology evolves (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gareth Saxby (859006) <saxby182@3.14159hotmail.com minus pi> on Sunday February 13 2005, @10:11AM (#11659138)
    As technology moves on, there's not a lot else to be expected really. The cheap and widespread availability of wireless communication means that more students will be inevitably taking the easier option; who wants to be tied down while making a phone call?

    To be frank, a change like this doesn't count as news, it's enevitable with evolving technology that things will change. This is just one of the many steps that are happening towards the much larger changes that are bound to come.

  • PAYGO (Score:3, Informative)

    by lxt (724570) on Sunday February 13 2005, @10:11AM (#11659140) Journal
    Certainly in Britain, where "Pay As You Go" phones took off far, far earlier than the US, it's been like this for a very long time. A student can buy a pay as you go phone now for £20, and all the major networks do various bundles / deals enabling you to buy cheaper airtime etc. etc.

    It's far more attractive than a contract, and calls are normally cheaper on the mobile than on the uni phone system anyway.

  • That's great and all ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jdwest (760759) on Sunday February 13 2005, @10:12AM (#11659144)
    except when one rings during my lecture.

    Never fails, despite warnings to the contrary. So I INSIST that they take the call -- right then, right there. I see a few others stealthily reaching into their backpacks to turn theirs off.

    I don't have any problems ... for the rest of the semester, at least.
    • give it a few years.

      around here _EVERY_ student in the lecture hall has a phone in their pocket, the lecturer has a phone and i'm betting that some have even multiple phones.

      and it's not a problem.

      another note: not one of my friends who have moved like me out from their parents have landlines - there's just no point in getting one.
    • One of my professors would make the student give him the cellphone, and he would take the call for the student! It was hilarious to listen to some of the conversations.

      "
      Hello? ... No, this is his/her professor. He/she is in my class right now. ... Ok. I'll let him/her know to pick it up from the store on the way back. ... Bye."

      Hilarity ensures...
    • Oh, one of my professors does it much differently...

      Prof: ... and the superlocrian scale here
      ---BRRRRRRIIING---
      [Amanda looks up all embarassed]
      [Prof walks over to Amanda, picks up the cell phone from next to her handbag.]
      Prof: Yo.
      Phone: ...
      Prof: What you want?
      Phone: ...
      Prof: Yeah! This is Horatio. What you want with my woman?
      [the other end hangs up]

      It never fails to amuse... (funny how some students just don't learn).

    • Re:That's great and all ... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by wintermute1000 (731750) on Sunday February 13 2005, @05:09PM (#11662320)
      My math professor answered his phone during lecture once. He talked for about a minute, exchanging pleasantries, etc, then hung up and said, "I get to go to the symphony tonight!" The class was in hysterics.

      I know another professor who elaborately staged an event where he made it look as though he snatched a student's phone out of her purse and stomped on it. He heard rumors about himself at other colleges in the area within a few weeks. Apparently the act of violence made a big splash.
      • I've gotten the impression that in many other countries college/university students are treated like grade schoolers are treated here, shut up, pay attention and do as you're told at all times...

        Being a (soon to graduate) college student in the US, I can say that aside from one or two exceptions, I have never had a professor with that attitude. If you kept in mind that you're expected to practice some common courtesy, like stepping outside to take calls, and turning phones off during exams, things were ju

  • Should have never been a cash cow (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zotz (3951) on Sunday February 13 2005, @10:13AM (#11659146) Homepage Journal
    '"Six or seven years ago, telephones on campus were a cash cow," said Glenn Gaslin of Morrisville State College in New York.'

    And here we see a basic problem. Trying to earn more than a fair return because you have monopoly power in a certain situation.

    They should never have been a cash cow in the first place, just a service provided to students with a modest rate of return.

    all the best,

    drew
    • Universities have cell phone users
      cell phone users need cell sites
      cell phone companies pay money to let people house their cell sites.

      so cell sites generate cash. Only problem is that cash probably does not go into telecommunications, and that that cow is more of a calf.
  • "College Dorms Extremely Lucrative to Burglarize"

    It's like Best Buy with beds and showers!

  • Land Lines as a Cash Cow (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Noksagt (69097) on Sunday February 13 2005, @10:14AM (#11659153) Homepage
    What the Washington Post article also hints at, is possible tuition hikes due to the landlines dropped so quickly. "Six or seven years ago, telephones on campus were a cash cow,"
    As it is, they many universities still overcharge for land-lines. The department I worked in has begun cutting service from under-used department phones, including ones they installed in rooms to have phone conferences. They are also looking (only somewhat seriously) into ways to have grad students share phones across different offices.

    Why can't Universities run more programs at or near cost, rather than try to bilk as much money as possible out of people?
    • Many universities have changed to a more business-oriented model - for better or for worse.

      Students are perceived by some administrations as a "product," and if the university makes a good product, then others will go to that university. All with the ultimate goals that donations and prestige will follow.
  • was with prices dropping from the "insane" level to the "almost reasonable" level, do any college students have plasma/LCD televisions? That's one place where it would actually make sense, space-wise, to have a slim TV. I would imagine that the risk of it being stolen would be extremely high. I would find a way to bolt that sucker in, somehow.

    Anyone in college or dealing with college students in dorms know what the popularity of the LCD/plasma TVs is? From the smaller 13" ones to the 40- and 50-inchers?
      • Just because it doesn't make sense doesn't mean they don't do it --- and here I'm Going to Make a Generalization(TM) and say that females are worse at this than males. I can't even begin to tell you how many girls/women would just sit and watch whatever crap was on TV when I was in school. During the day, at night, on weekends. And this wasn't just fat girls, this was pretty much across the board.

        I never understood what was so exciting about turning on the TV. Certainly there's worthwhile stuff on there, b

  • Surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LinuxHam (52232) on Sunday February 13 2005, @10:16AM (#11659166) Homepage Journal
    With most of the major carriers offering free minutes for calls between *any* of their customers (not just those on a family plan), is it any wonder that so many students are showing up with cellphones? I was expecting to see commentary about carriers linking up with campuses in advertising arrangements. I would expect Verizon and Cingular/AT&T to turn campuses into battlegrounds reminding everyone that all calls to any other user on their network is free all day, every day, encouraging the students to convince their friends to all use the same carrier.

    I remember using the community phone in the dorm hallway 16 years ago. I'm shocked that practice went on for another 11 years!!

  • Back in the old days (Score:3, Informative)

    by NetDanzr (619387) on Sunday February 13 2005, @10:22AM (#11659188)
    I transferred to a US college in January of 1997 and graduated in May of 2000. Back then, the following was commonplace:
    • Laptops. We all got a Texas Instruments Extensa 510. Pentium 100, 8MB of RAM, 710MB HDD, Windows 95. Linx as a browser, PINE for e-mail. We all had a 14.4 modem that we got with the computer. Mine still works, and I'm still using it, but only with DOS.
    • Phones. We all got landline phones, and very few of us had cellphones initially. Cellphones became increasingly popular after phone provider initiated a $20/month charge, because most students spent less than that on phone bills. I didn't care - my phone service got canceled after it turned out that they spent more on the stamp for sending me the bill than what I paid them. Since then I used a calling card and a public phone, until now, when I started a grad program at Georgia Tech and realized that Tech has removed all public phones from the campus. I'm wondering what wireless provider paid them to do so...
    • Home entertainment. TVs were not too common; only about a quarter of the students had them. I remember watching the Nagano Olympics with a hundred or so other students in the student center - a pretty common sight. Stereos were much more common - about one out of two students had them.
    • Other electronics. By far the most common devices were small fridges and coffee makers. After all those were the sweet innocent times when we didn't go to bed with a dozen of standby lights flashing at us from all directions, and when we were happy in our ignorant bliss.
    • During the same time period (Fall 96-Spring 00) I was in college, too...

      Computer: P-133, 32 MB RAM. Win 95 til I upgraded to a grey market copy of 98SE. Networking was accomplished with a 9600 baud ROLM dataphone. Serial cable. Opened a direct connection into the IRIX machine we used TIN, Lynx and PINE from. About 50% of the campus was using a computer in their rooms, but very few had Dataphones. There was a waiting list. I applied in Sept. when I got there and had it in November.

      Phones: All landline, ru

  • Universities should work with Cell Provider (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kfstark (50638) on Sunday February 13 2005, @10:27AM (#11659204) Homepage
    Why not have students get a University sponsored cell-phone with a few special features:
    1. push-to-talk capability within Univ phones
    2. free instant messaging within Univ phones.
    3. Bluetooth and/or cable for internet access using the cell phone.
    4. Free calling to/from a student's home town.(this would need a DID in student's home area code)
    I'm sure there are more features that student's would love to have and be willing to pay for. Also, a cell phone company would love the contract to be the sole supplier to a college campus.
    --Keith

  • It's just indicative of where phone use is headed. (Score:5, Informative)

    by jcostom (14735) on Sunday February 13 2005, @10:27AM (#11659206) Homepage
    Look at say, Finland. The vast majority of folks there use a mobile as their primary phone. With LNP now available here in the US, particularly the ability to migrate a landline number to a mobile, this trend will only increase.

    Take my wife & I as an example.. We had 2 landlines here in our house. One was ours, the other is paid for by my company (I work from home). During a 2 month period, our home phone got shut off no less than 5 times. And before you start to think it - no, we paid the bill each month, on time. Each call to Verizon customer service was greeted with an endless sea of automated menus to troubleshoot your line. Thankfully, you can keep mashing down the 0 key to get a human on the phone.

    Each time this happened, we were told that we could expect to see a technician at our house in some ridiculous amount of time, usually 3-8 days. Then, mysteriously, the line would start working again. The explanation was always some inane excuse like, "someone unplugged your line at the CO" or "we had a mux that failed". We complained about rotten service to CS reps, Supervisors, Supervisors of Supervisors, and even to the office of Ivan Seidenberg (the CEO of Verizon for those who don't know). Know where it got us? Nowhere, fast.

    Tired of the crap, we voted with our feet. We were spending about $50 a month for the Verizon line, plus about another $35 for my wife's mobile. We popped over to the Cingular store and got a couple of phones on a family plan. I got a new number and we ported the home phone number over to the wife's mobile. Now our phones cost about $65 a month. We can call any Cingular customer (now including AT&T Wireless users) for free, have free nights & weekends, 850 min/mo and rollover. No coverage problems around here, and it all "just works".

    And hey, if you decide to do something like this - make sure you port to a carrier OTHER than Verizon Wireless. That is, if you're doing it because you're sick of Verizon. Otherwise, if you're happy with them, do whatever you feel like.

    • Re:It's just indicative of where phone use is head (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Hey! Verizon Landline is totally separate from Verizon Wireless. They don't have a single person working for them in common AFAIK. They are owned by some of the same people, but just because Verizon landline is a bunch of rotten asshats, don't lump us in with them.

      Disclaimer: I work for Verizon Wireless
    • We did the same thing, going from SBC to T-Mobile. We pay $80 for two lines, a pile of SMS, and the same number of minutes with no rollover, which is a little less value, but we can roam on AT&T/Cingular networks for free so it's not all bad. SBC had our land line down for three days when they knew the problem was between the pole and the demarc, so we cancelled our service and rolled down to T-Mobile. There was a while when we had one phone from them, actually, and the land line was actually costing us

  • Are we missing the real reason? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bigtallmofo (695287) on Sunday February 13 2005, @10:33AM (#11659246)
    Could the lack of landline phones in dorms be because of the busy life that college students live? Who has time to answer a landline phone in your own dorm room when you're getting drunk until 5 am and sleeping in a different person's bed every night?

    Beyond that, dorm rooms are for sleeping and you certainly don't want some annoying phone ringing when you're there.

  • Oh, landLINES. (Score:3, Funny)

    by What'sInAName (115383) on Sunday February 13 2005, @10:33AM (#11659249) Homepage Journal
    Glanced the headline briefly, and thought that university administrator were getting desperate for methods to keep college students on campus.

  • I'll be going to Canberra for half a year to study (July-December). Could slashdot readers "down under" recommend a (mobile?) phone carrier and option that doesn't cost an arm and a leg? I have an unlocked GSM 900/1800 phone that I could bring.
  • i think that most students spend their time outside of dormitories anyway so why pay for something that you do not use? i am not surprised at this.

  • Failure to keep up with the times (Score:3, Interesting)

    by whitis (310873) on Sunday February 13 2005, @11:33AM (#11659663) Homepage

    Another case of a monopoly doing themselves in.

    The universities are moaning about their loss of revenue from the land-line cash cow but it is their own fault. If they had installed sufficient 802.11g wireless routers throughout campus (as well as around the bars off campus) and provided wireless VoIP service, they could have undercut the cell phone providers. People who live off campus don't buy land line service from the university, anyway, and the ones who live on campus rarely stray off campus so they could be tempted by a service that allows unlimited calls (some cellular companies offer unlimited calls by they have limited coverage but systems with reasonable coverage charge exhorbitant rates for daytime minutes). And the system could be setup to deliver calls to your PC when you are in your dorm room. A typical university already has much of the infrastructure. It already has a high speed network. It already owns the buildings where the access points would be installed. It already has right of ways in the form of steam tunnels located under the sidewalks allowing access points to be added between buildings easily. It already has a PBX with trunk lines to connect to landlines.

    No, the school wouldn't have a monopoly but it would be competing against cell phone services that cost more than the university charged for land lines.

    Bandwidth would be an issue so they would need to go with lots of access points with small antennas located inside buildings or along sidewalks rather than a few access points with big antennas on the roof.

  • Good for them (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fleener (140714) on Sunday February 13 2005, @01:33PM (#11660668)
    Dorm landline phones suck anyway. In my dorm, you paid the phone company an activation fee at the beginning of the semester. If you stayed for the summer, you had to move to a special dorm and pay another activation fee. Then at the beginning of the next school year that fall you paid another activation fee as you moved back. Two activation fees every year just for the privilege of doing business with you? No thanks.

  • Fewer land lines = fewer cordless phones (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FuturePastNow (836765) on Sunday February 13 2005, @03:36PM (#11661716)
    And that means less interference with wireless networks.

    When I was a college student, my PC was my stereo, DVD player, and gaming system, and now it's my television as well. I've never tried VOIP, but it could be my phone someday, too.
    • The only time I've ever had to look at a text is when an instructor has assigned homework from questions in the book or I just didn't go to class and needed to read what they would've lectured on. At ~$600 per semester, they are rather expensive for such little use.

    • Re:It makes me wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tony Hoyle (11698) <tmh@nodomain.org> on Sunday February 13 2005, @11:25AM (#11659616) Homepage
      I spent a fortune in books in my first year.

      By the second year I'd wised up that:

      (a) most lecturers didn't even use the books, and those that did gave out photocopied notes.
      (b) for homework purposes the library had several copies
      (c) half the books were written or co-written by the lecturers an they were getting a cut.

      So for the second year I bought no books at all. Didn't miss them.

    • No extra charge at MSU (Score:4, Informative)

      by DestroBIG (853684) on Sunday February 13 2005, @10:43AM (#11659330)
      Here in Michigan (MSU), they provide landlines for free to students in the dorms. If you ask for a phone they will even give you that. Also, does TFA assume that if you have a cell phone that you don't have a landline? Cable TV is also provided for free to those who live in the dorms. I know they aren't technically "free" but you don't pay extra so you're a fool not to use either service.

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