
In an effort to get hip to the times (read: stop hemorrhaging cash on unprofitable landlines), some colleges are now submitting to the reality that virtually all students prefer mobile phones as their primary form of contact by decommissioning or reducing reliance on campus and dorm phone systems in favor of wireless. Several are going so far as to provide their students with custom plans and mobile apps connected to campus systems. As we initially reported
last year, one of the more ambitious projects is coming together at New Jersey's Montclair State University where incoming freshmen now receive obligatory LBS-enabled cellphones loaded with school software and services co-developed with Rave Wireless. The LBS aspect has apparently been a hangup for some students, though, weirded out by the concept of being tracked by their deans and professors until they're assured that the GPS tracking functionality of the phone is strictly opt-in only, which can be activated by individuals in an emergency to assist police. Morrisville State in New York even buddied up with Nextel Partners (yeah,
that Nextel Partners) to beef up campus coverage in exchange for bundling wireless plans with students' room and board bills. It's always refreshing to see stodgy institutions wising up to these sorts of trends -- albeit late -- but as the AP points out, many students are likely to be coming in with existing phones and family plans that end up cheaper than what the schools are able to offer. Of course, if Montclair offers real-time tracking of every pizza delivery driver in town, well, there's your killer app right there.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
flamer's grill @ Jul 11th 2006 3:02PM
I think I'd still rather have the option of having a landline in my dorm room, mainly because your landline phone doesn't have a battery that will go dead. When I'm drunk for an entire weekend, charging your cell phone is not high on my list of priorities, and it would suck if I tried to make a booty call and my phone didn't work.
supersocialist @ Jul 12th 2006 9:59AM
I don't understand why cellular cradles aren't standard yet. Plugs are just easier to forget.
Mary @ Jul 14th 2006 6:04AM
I left Morrisville the semester before they put the cellphones in. The problem they have up there at least when I attended is that only Cingular and Verizon work there (and apparently Nextel). I had Sprint and had to switch to someone else since my phone would work only once I got 20 miles away from the school itself. From what I can remember the landlines and long distance plans at Morrisville were horrible as well.