14 February 2005

Hi,

I hope all is well.

As the 12 February 2005 Washington Post article below illustrates,
postsecondary telecom administrators face a decline in revenue and
difficult choices about how to design their respective telecom
architectures.   Their telecom decisions (e.g., messaging, video and
video conferencing, interactive telephone displays, cellular, IP
telephony, etc.) have accessibility implications.

Their telecom architectures involve office, classroom, dorm room and
on-the-go environments, and include faculty, staff, student and public
access.   TTY access with VoIP, meaningful access to the information
presented on interactive telephone displays and cellular phone
compatibility with hearing aids are three of many challenges.

The article below mentions the Association for Communications Technology
Professionals in Higher Education (known also as ACUTA),
http://www.acuta.org.   You may find a list of volunteer ACUTA state
coordinators at the following URL:

http://www.acuta.org/dynamic/Listings/State2.cfm

I hope this helps.

Again, I hope all is well.   Happy Valentine's Day, everybody.

Regards,


Gil Shamir
University Legal Services, Inc.
Assistive Technology Program for the District of Columbia
220 I Street, NE, Suite 130
Washington, DC   20002
Telephone:   (202) 547-0198 ext. 121 (voice)
FAX:   (202) 547-2662 or (202) 547-2083
E-mail:   [log in to unmask]


Colleges' Land Lines Nearing Silent End
 
 By Susan Kinzie
 
  Freshman Max Bender uses the phone plugged into the wall of his
American University dorm room so rarely that he forgot it was there.
"Hey," he said the other day when he walked in and saw it on top of the
microwave. "We do have a land line."
 
 Starting next fall, AU students conditioned to cell phones will find
few of those wired artifacts as the school all but eliminates
traditional phone service in its residence halls. 
 
 Across the country, wired phones are becoming obsolete. Although not
many colleges have eliminated them, "almost every major school is
evaluating it," said Jeri Semer, executive director of the Association
for Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education. 
 
 This transformation of campus culture  -- cell phones keeping students
closely tied to friends and family, making social life fluid, even
intruding on professors' lectures -- also poses a financial challenge
for administrators. Land-line phones used to bring in money for many
schools. Now some find themselves paying to maintain systems that
students rarely use. 
 
 "Six or seven years ago, telephones on campus were a cash cow," said
Glenn Gaslin of Morrisville State College in New York, which got rid of
its land lines in 2003 and provided students with mobile phones, with an
option to add long-distance service. Marshall University in West
Virginia will complete a switch to cell phones in student housing in the
fall, giving out phones that include long-distance calling plans.
 
 It wasn't that long ago, a generation perhaps, when students had to
wait in line to use communal phones in dormitory hallways. Five years
ago, just over one-third of U.S. college students had cell phones on
campus, according to a national survey by the market-research firm
Student Monitor. In the fall, nearly nine of 10 did.
 
  At James Madison University in Harrisonburg, the student directory is
no longer full of four-digit dorm-room extensions, but rather 10-digit
cell phone numbers from Tennessee, New Jersey, Delaware and other
states. James Madison administrators don't want to tell students that
they have to bring cell phones, though, said spokesman  Andrew Perrine.
 
 "It's like requiring kids to show up with golf clubs or something," he
said.
 
 Leaders of some U.S. universities -- including George Washington, the
University of Maryland and the University of Virginia -- are evaluating
their phone options. Some administrators aren't sure that they could
ensure student safety without at least a few land lines in dorms. And
some students worry that 911 calls from cell phones might not be routed
properly and that "dead zones" might leave them without service.
 
 At GWU, which plans to have fewer wired phones in student rooms,
officials also are concerned about the potentially higher costs for
international students calling overseas on cells.
 
 American University already feels unplugged. The campus is wireless, so
students can type e-mails and study on laptops from couches, the steps
of the library and benches outside. Snatches of one-sided conversations
drift by as students walk to class talking on their cells. Next fall,
the university will provide business school students the latest
BlackBerry devices. 
 
 Bender and his friend Lauren Fox, who lives on the same dorm hall, have
each had a cell phone for years, although Bender keeps getting new ones
after losing or breaking them. 
 
 One day last week, Fox, in her room with a frosting-pink lamp and
flowered bedspread, had her cell close at hand, next to her laptop, just
as her roommate did. She said she talks to her parents in Texas twice a
day, usually, and to her twin sister in Indiana at least four times a
day -- the two use 2,000 minutes a month.
 
 "It used to be you'd call someone because you had a reason to call,"
said Ian Johnson, 28, a graduate student at American. "Now you call
because you're bored waiting for the bus to come. . . . It's almost a
noise pollution."
 
 In the past three years at AU, long-distance calls from the dorm phones
plummeted. 
 
 Five years ago, the school made hundreds of thousands of dollars a year
on long-distance service, said Carl Whitman, executive director of the
Office of Information Technology. Last semester, the school made $1,109.

 
 The money that colleges charged students helped pay for their
decades-old phone systems; now they can't even get some parts  when
things break, said Julie E. Weber, AU's executive director of housing
and dining programs. 
 
 So come fall, American will have some land-line phones in hallways for
local calls, one for every 40 to 50 students, but administrators don't
expect them to get much use. 
 
 Replacing the phone system in the residence halls would cost more than
$1 million, Whitman said, estimating that $100,000 a year would be saved
on operating costs.
 
 And what about the students who can't afford cell phones? "Not everyone
is fortunate enough," Bender said. 
 
 He and Fox looked at each other, trying to think of someone at AU --
but everyone they know has one.