Earlier this semester land telephone lines were removed from all residence hall rooms. The university is expected to save $50,000 annually from this modification.

Less than 1 percent of the phone lines in the residence halls were actually used last year said Chris Fulkerson, assistant vice president for technology. Also, the current phone switch, which expires soon, would have cost nearly $1 million to replace.

“For safety, we reverted back to one phone in each hall or each common area in the case of the newer residence buildings,” Fukerson said. “Back when I went to school, we had one phone on each dorm floor. Then, it was not only used in the event of emergency, but it serviced the whole hall as the only means of communication. I think it is ironic that we are going back to the one phone per hall.”

The phone system removed from residence halls was old technology that required upgrades. If Elon had upgraded the systems to the newer Voice Over Internet Protocol phone system, as is being done in administrative buildings, it would cost approximately $50,000 per building, plus annual costs.

Many other colleges and universities have started taking phone lines out of residence halls. With the emergence of cell phones, students aren’t using traditional phone lines anymore, Fulkerson said.

“Neither my roommate nor I had any plans to buy a phone for our room, regardless of whether or not we had a land line,” freshman Stephen Morris said. “There’s no need when we both have cell phones.”

At this point, there has not been a great deal of opposition to the decision to remove phones from residence halls.

“We are keeping track of complaints and have had eight parents and three students complain,” said Fulkerson. “All of the complaints stem from the fact that some cell carriers do not provide strong enough signal to get coverage inside residence halls. This is especially true in the newer Danieley Center buildings. We have found that only three carriers have good coverage in this area, Alltel, Verizon and AT&T. Of the three, Alltel has the strongest while AT&T has the weakest.”

Rosalie Trujillo, a freshmen Danieley Center resident and AT&T customer, feels that students could have benefited from maintaining land telephone lines at Danieley.

“Normally I have to go outside to use my cell phone. Right now it’s not so much of a problem, but eventually I think it will be frustrating,” she said. “It will get colder outside, especially at night when I typically talk to my family and friends at home.”

Other students support Elon’s decision to remove the service.

“I think that taking out all of the landlines is a good idea for the sole reason that nobody ever uses them,” sophomore Eric Hart said. “Even if the student doesn’t get good service on his or her cell phone in the dorm, he or she will just go outside for the privacy anyways.”

Reporter: Amanda Duberman - 09/26/07