Page 12
The Pendulum
Thursday, September 18,1
Emphasis
lampus telephone system has
*ts advantages, disadvantages
By Scott Wood
Emphasis Editor
At home, the telephone was
omething most students thought
ame standard with the house. It
was there for use day after day
without fail. However, at college
students face the reality of having
to pay for phone service and long
distance calls.
Students living on campus at
Elon must subscribe to the Elon
College Telephone service. Elon’s
Private Branch Exchange, or PBX
is shared by both faculty and resi
dent students. Instead of a
telephone number number,
residents have an extension
number.
The system here has its advan
tages and disadvantages. First,
compared to rates charged by
Southern Bell, Elon Telcom is
quite a deal. According to Mrs.
Ruth Fisk, of the Southern Bell
Business Office, students living
off campus can expect to pay
about $21 jjer month for basic ser
vice. Elon charges $13.50 per
month. Second, Elon has a $7.50
connection fee compared to
Southern Bell’s $40 fee. Third,
Southern Bell may require a
deposit of $75 to $200, depending
upon a student’s credit history.
Elon requires no deposit.
Moneymaking Venture
Nevertheless, Elon Telcom is a
money making venture of the col
lege. Elon Telcom subscribes to
AT&T’s Wide Area Telephone
Service, commonly called
VATTS service. Instead of paying
for long distance calls by the
linute and the destination, Elon
ays a flat fee per hour.
This is how it works. When a
resident student picks up the
phone and dials his personal long
istance code and the telephone
number, Elon’s telephone system
lectronically selects the least ex-
“nsive WATTS line available.
Say a student calls Baltimore
nd talks for an hour. Elon bills
e student a retail rate of $9, but
e call only costs Elon Telcom
he wholesale rate of $7.50. Elon
ckets the $1.50 difference as
rofit. That may not seem like a
lot of monq', but when the phone
system processes an average of
more than 4,000 calls per night
during the week, it adds up.
Sharing is the key word behind
Elon Telcom’s system. All exten
sion phones, both faculty and
staff, share trunks. A trunk is
almost like a telephone line in a
home, except that Elon has special
trunks which perform special
functions. Some trunks only make
outgoing calls. Others make only
long distance distance calls. Some
only receive incoming calls.
Ted Robins, a freshman from
New Jersey, said,“My girlfriend
has problems calling me. She
sometimes gets a busy siginal
even though I’m not on the
phone.” This is because Elon
Telcom currently provides 25
direct inward dialing trunks for in
coming calls. This means only 25
f)eople can receive a call at a time.
If someone calls a campus
telephone while all 25 incoming
trunks are busy, the caller will still
receive a busy siginal even if the
phone dialed is not in use.
The same busy conditions can
happen when a student tries to
call off campus. A certain number
of tnmks are reserved for off cam
pus. A telephone rush hour can
occur when more students are try
ing to call then there are trunks
available.
Steve Holt, Elon Telcom’s
engineer, said he is aware of the
problems students are having.
Holt said, “A total of 15 trunks are
going being added in 4 to 6 weeks
to accommodate the high volume
of traffic.” He said this will in
clude the addition of two incom
ing trunks and four outgoing
trunks, plus 13 long-distance
trunks. The increased numbers of
students from outside North
Carolina has necessitated the
redesign of long-distance trunks to
which Elon subscribes. Telcom
has increased the number of long
distance trunks available for out-
of-state dialing. Before this year
Telcom largely concentrated on
long-distance trunks for use in
North Carolina.
Efficiency Rated
According to Holt, the addi
tional 15 trunks will give Elon’s
phone system a “P grade 1”
rating. This means Elon’s phone
system is just as efficient as
Southern Bell’s.
Because students pay the retail
AT&T direct dial rate they cannot
take advantage of the Equal Ac
cess Ruling of the Federal Com
munications Commission. This
ruling makes available other long
distance companies, which in
some cases are cheaper then the
rates students now pay.
However, students are able to
take advantage of other long
distance companies by subscrib
ing and using a toll-free access
number. Elon Telcom used to
subscribe to cheaper systems such
as Sprint and MCI. Buck Bayliff,
director of auxiliary services,
declined to comment on why Elon
no longer uses these systems.
Surcharge Is New
New this year is a $1 surcharge
to students making oprator-
assisted calls such as collect and
AT&T credit card calls. Bayliff
said,“This dollar is not being
charged by the college, but
Southern Bell.” However, Gary
Brinkley, assistant manager of
marketing for Southern Bell, said
in an interview, “I’m not aware of
any dollar charge of this kind.”
Beverly Spann, service consultant
for Southern Bell, said, “The
dollar charge for operator
assistance must be a university
policy.”
How do Elon students feel
about their campus phone ser
vice? Dan Worrell, a freshman
from Vincetown, N.J., said, “I
have had no problems so far, but
I do not agree with charging for
unanswered calls that ring more
than eight times.” In fact this has
always been a problem for Elon
Telcom. Elon’s system is unable
to distinguish when the person
called has picked up the phone.
Because of this, the call tracking
system automatically begins bill
ing 30 seconds into the call,
whether someone has answered or
not.
Elon does not get billed by the
phone company for the overring,
but does expect the student to pay
for it. On the other hand, if the
person called picks up the phone
on the first ring he or she gets
about 20 second free. ,.,,
There is a piece of equipment
MAKING IT WORK: Telecom
circuits with a test set.
available to correct this problem.
It is called a Answered Supervis
ed Trunk and is used on all
Southern Bell lines. However, it
is quite expensive, and Bayliff
said that the monthly fee for ser
vice would have to be increased
for Elon to correct the problem.
Teresa Weavil, Telcom
manager, said the simplest solu
tion, if a student wants to let the
phone ring more than eight times,
is to hang up and call again.
Other problems for Telcom are
caused by growth. For example,
resident students in Baxter House
are still without individual phone
service. About 20 women are re
quired to share one central phone.
According to Holt, a cable will
have to be buried from the new
Fine Arts Center across the
lacrosse field to Baxter House. He
did say the project would have to
be approved by President Fred
Young.
Another new feature of the
phone system this year is that
students living on campus can call
from room to room and receive
calls from off campus free of
^. cljarge. However, with the Telcom
system at its current maximum for
engineer Steve Holt checks out pho*^
Photo by Ann Cralidi
handling calls about 60 rooms ori
120 students are without this ser
vice. Holt said this problem |
would be corrected with the ad-i
I
dition of several new pieces i
equipment, providing everyoKi
To
I thi
ove
with service. ^
Another problem that
are encountering is not being
to accept collect calls. This
was effected last year to curb
problem of phone billing abuse.
mat
leci
Many students were billing (
to different numbers other thanf
their own, therefore trying I0|
•. ong
avoid payment. ^
The action has not solved the^
problem of billing abuse ^
ty. Weavil said that part of the pW’ ^
blem is students’ unwillingness to
protect their seven-digit access
code. Some will write it on the|"™
wall next to phone, while othen|
give it to their friends. Once ti*i ^
access code is available, a longj^
distance call can be made frofflM
any campus phone and billed®^
another student without hisi
knowledge.
To help curb this problem.
Telcom has increased the access
code from six to seven digio