With cell phones becoming commonplace and air time dropping in cost, many students are choosing to subscribe only to a cell phone service at Boston University this year. However, despite this local increase in wireless communication use, BU officials in charge of on-campus telecommunications said they are not worried.
“We’ve seen these changes coming for awhile now,” said Shawn Kinneen, social director of telecommunications at BU. “This is not a money-making issue for the University. The students can sign on individually with the Verizon service, which we bring on-campus for the first few weeks. We set up pin numbers for their security and that’s all. We use it as more of a safety valve.”
Students said they have noticed the influx of cell phone users covering the campus.
“A lot of my friends have cell phones this year that didn’t last year,” said College of Engineering sophomore Jessica Gereige.
Even though there are many students who can deal with the burden of a higher monthly bill, others said they are more reluctant to spend extra for the cell phone’s amenities.
“I’ve never had a cell phone in my life,” said ENG sophomore Eric Young. “With the varied long-distance charges from my Verizon room phone, it is tough enough to afford that bill every month. From what I hear from my friends who have cell phones, it’s almost impossible to not go over your monthly balance. I wouldn’t be able to afford incoming calls or roaming charges.
“It’s tough to get in touch with people throughout the day,” Young said. “But at night it is much easier, because everyone is around anyway. I don’t feel like I am missing out by not having a cell phone.”
Gereige made a similar decision, but issues of privacy weighed more heavily for her.
“I come from Lebanon and over there you do not have to pay for incoming calls,” she said. “Cell phones are better for long-distance calls, but not if you talk a lot. I guess cell phones make it more convenient, but I didn’t get one because I don’t want to be reached wherever I am. That would be annoying.”
According to Bob Noble, a spokesman for Verizon Phone service, the company anticipates a decrease in more than one area of phone service.
“It’s a growing trend, not only on college campuses but throughout the entire population,” said Noble. “More and more people are relying on cell phones and probably more on college campuses, because young people are more flexible in adopting new technology. So there is no question that there will be a slight decline in our telephone service.
“It also led to a decline in payphones,” said Noble. “If people can have a conversation anywhere, there is less demand for payphones. These declines don’t surprise me, but in terms of our company’s bottom-line, Verizon is making up for it.”
According to Brend Raney, spokesman for Verizon Wireless, the profit gap found by Verizon Telephone Service is greatly lessened by the efforts of its wireless counterpart.
“We have a huge marketing effort aimed at our ‘Late Teen to Young Adult’ customer group,” said Raney. “So if college students are using cell phones more, that is clearly a good thing.”
Kinneen said there are a “good percentage of students” using the Verizon dorm phone service for a variety of reasons.
“Students have told us that they like using it for emergency situations, like calling 911,” Kinneen said. “With cell phones it is difficult to locate the exact position of the caller, while it is much easier with the dorm phones.
“Also, a lot of the rooms have vestibule phones used to contact students, which cannot be done using cell phones,” he said. “In addition, students don’t want to eat up their minutes calling other students on campus, so we see a lot of people getting both.”
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