news-record.com

GREENSBORO - When students fill the dorms at UNCG this fall, they will be provided plenty of technological wonders. Phone service, however, will not be one of them. And by most accounts they won't notice.

The school decided to pull the plug on phone service after discovering that fewer than 500 students out of 4,200 set up landlines in their dorm rooms last year. The survey also found that only 30 students came to school without a cell phone.

"Students simply are not bringing the equipment and hooking up a phone," said Mary Hummel, director of housing at UNCG.

Hummel said the decision will save the school about $700,000 each year. That money will be used to improve safety features such as fire alarms and sprinkler systems.

Students will have the option of contracting digital phone service with Time Warner Cable, which also provides cable television service to the school.

That phone service does not work during power outages.

The decision to end phone services in the dorms raised some concerns for Guilford Metro 911 Director Wesley Reid. Reid learned of the school's decision Tuesday and called the school to make sure officials were aware of the differences between 911 service with landline phones and cell phones.

"We just want the public to be aware of the dangers out there," he said.

When a 911 call is made from a landline inside the dorm room, the dorm address, number and in some cases even name of the student appear on the operator's computer screen, Reid said. Even if the caller can't speak, campus police get an exact location.

With many cell phones, the locations are not nearly as exact. Reid said they can sometimes be a block or more off.

"It gets close, but that (exact location) matters when it's a life and death situation," he said.

Hummel said those issues were taken into consideration when the decision was made. But she reiterated that the vast majority of students are not bringing traditional phones to school and thus could not call 911 on a landline in the dorm room to begin with.

Students also can sign up for cell-phone text alerts for campus-related emergencies.

Freshman Madison Collins and her mother, Lynne, came from Charlotte on Wednesday for orientation. Neither was aware UNCG is discontinuing phone service in the dorms. Then again, neither considered the need for a landline.

"I definitely use my cell phone way more than I do my land phone," Madison Collins said.

Lynne Collins said she hadn't thought much about it when her sons went off to college without land phones, but it did become a problem when one of the boys lost his phone and family members couldn't reach each other.

She said the issue is a little more disconcerting with her daughter and she will consider the digital phone service.

But on top of all the costs the family already is facing, Lynne Collins isn't sure she'll get it.

"I don't think kids will even notice there's not a phone in their rooms," she said.

The digital phone service offered by Time Warner does provide exact location information, Reid said. He understands why the school is discontinuing the service but said if it were one of his daughters living on campus, he would pay for the digital phone service.

"My advice would be, my daughter would have a landline phone and a cell phone," he said.

Contact J. Brian Ewing at 373-7351 or brian.ewing @news-record.com