Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Colleges Catch Cell-Phone Wave

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 21:54:09 -0500

Colleges Catch Cell-Phone Wave
By Mary Beth Marklein
October 29, 2003

Technology's true believers say that, just as computers have revolutionized higher education, so, too, will cell phones.
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Sure, there may be students among the 15,000-plus undergraduates at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, who don't carry a cell phone . But "I haven't seen them," says campus telecommunications director Tom Walsh.
Indeed, cell phones have insinuated themselves into campus life in a relatively short time. Some 78% of college students had one last spring, says market-research company Student Monitor, based on a survey of 1,200 four-year full-time students on 100 college and university campuses. Three years earlier that number was 34%.
That's light-years away from his day, Walsh says, when a pay phone at each end of the residence hall was the link to the outside world.
But as students have migrated to cell phones, colleges and universities face a problem.  In the 2001-02 school year, for instance, Miami University logged about 130,000 fewer long-distance calls from on-campus land-line phones and 273,000 fewer long-distance calls from students off campus. It lost about $300,000 in phone revenues, which primarily paid for the land-line system.
Now, many schools are trying to cash in on the cell-phone craze by negotiating service plans of their own as a way to meet student demand, save money and, perhaps, create a new revenue source.
This fall, for instance, Miami University began offering a plan, including an option that includes a free phone, which it negotiated with Cincinnati Bell Wireless. For $15 a month and a $25 set-up fee, students can get 300 anytime local minutes, plus 3-cents-a-minute rates beyond that. They also get features such as caller ID and voice mail. Long-distance charges out of the area range from eight to 12 cents a minute.
''A huge user can probably find a better deal,'' Walsh says, but ''we think it fits most people.''
A number of schools, including State University of New York at Albany, Denison University in Granville, Ohio, and San Diego State University, meanwhile, recently signed with CampusCell, a year-old New Hampshire-based company that offers schools rates of $1.50 to $2.50 a month for every enrolled user. All the school has to do is let the company distribute brochures through campus mail.
And this fall, Morrisville State College in New York eliminated land lines in dorm rooms altogether, handing out a cell phone to each of the 1,700 students living in residence halls. As part of their dorm services fee, each student gets free incoming calls and unlimited local calling, along with numerous features, including voice mail, caller ID and Nextel's (Nasdaq: NXTL)
new walkie-talkie service. They can buy long-distance plans starting at $29.99.
(By comparison, students living off-campus can buy a Nextel phone and service plan that includes nationwide long-distance calling for a base fee of $39.99 a month along with a start-up cost of about $25.)
Economics aside, the reasons for the popularity of cell phones are clear: Parents appreciate being able to keep in contact with their kids, especially if there's an emergency. And students, many of whom spend little time in their dorm rooms or apartments, like the flexibility and convenience.
''I'm very busy on campus ... so it's nice having that connection and not having to worry about all the calls I missed while I was at work or the computer lab,'' says Jamie Mikula, 22, a senior at St. Norbert College in DePere, Wis.
For service providers, the allure of snagging a contract with a college or university is access to a captive audience. ''You can't imagine how big this industry is,'' says CampusCell CEO Donald Goodearl, referring to the nation's 9 million college-age students. Not only are they tech-savvy, ''they're heavy talkers,'' he says.
His company markets directly to individual users, but universities that develop their own deals also can ask providers for a percentage of ongoing service revenues as part of the bargain.
''In exchange for our helping them to market to the students, we're certainly looking for something in return,'' says Carl Whitman, executive director of e-operations at American University in Washington, D.C.  The campus is looking to develop long-distance plans with a service provider as it moves closer to creating a wireless campus. ''It's meant to be a win-win'' for everyone, he says.
Not every deal has worked to the school's advantage. Last year, St. Norbert College gave cell phones to 50 students housed in a former assisted-living building, but found the plan cost nearly five times as much as traditional land lines: $12,000 compared with $2,500.
Students liked the perk, but ''economically it was a no-brainer'' to go back to land lines, says facilities director John Barnes.
Also, ''an awful lot of students came with cell phones, so ... we were being a little redundant.''
Even so, technology's true believers say that, just as computers have revolutionized higher education, so, too, will cell phones.
Morrisville State College president Ray Cross, for instance, envisions a day when each cell phone will carry devices that allow a student to use it as an ID card, campus debit card and key to their residence halls.
With a press of a button, he soon could be sending a text message to the cell phones of every student on campus.
Ultimately, he predicts, cell phone and laptop will converge ''in a way we can't foresee right now.''
For now, though, he's getting used to some of the unintended effects of those ubiquitous phones. Namely, the noise level, which he says has increased remarkably on campus with the walkie-talkie feature, because a bystander can hear both sides of the conversation.
''You walk around campus and these kids are talking to each other all the time. And it's beep-beep,'' Cross says. ''In some ways it drives you nuts, but you have to smile because in some ways it's a reflection of what's going on socially with young men and women around the country. Instant communication is very popular.''
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/22587.html

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