- Sunday, 29 November 2009
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Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils - Hector Berlioz
University cuts all landlines
LANDLINES HAVE BEEN disconnected in the dorms of the University of Kentucky because students don't use them.
A university spokesman said the move will save the university $840,000 as it pays $25 per land line each month.
Incoming students have mobile phones and would hardly know what that device which is plugged into the wall would do anyway.
The move is popular with students because it has meant that the university has not had to raise its housing costs this year and can improve dormitory Internet connections.
What was telling was that although the university's 5,600 dorm residents still can request a phone line, but only seven had done so.
More than 98.2 percent of students in dorms own and prefer to use mobiles, a survey found. µ
L'Inq
NKY
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Seriously? They were paying $25 for a line for each and every student? They didn't just have a small bank of lines and a block of numbers allocated and a switchboad?
FFS. Academics.
As someone who has just set up VoIP phone equipment (using sipgate.co.uk), basically it's made land lines as good as dead, to my mind - so long as you can guarantee the quality of service needed for those VoIP calls. I should imagine that is possible for a lot less than $25 per room, though! If the University wanted to be *really* clever, they could install a VoIP-powered ISDN PABX, and install ISDN phones in students rooms. That would be pretty much idiot-proof, too...

I don't like mobile phones - they're still too expensive, and if the OpCos are not extremely careful, they might just find people pulling out their SIM cards and using a phone configured for VoIP over WLAN. After all, if you don't need it absolutely *everywhere*, why use GSM in the first place? My next mobile phone will be a Nokia E51, and I will be using it *primarily* for VoIP.