This is the second article in a two-part series exploring landline phone use and its demise in the wake of the cell phone. The first installment focused on the landline services offered in Tufts' residence halls; this one examines how students view these services and on how the trends in wireless communications will affect students post-college.
Despite the fact that phone jacks still decorate every dorm room wall, the chance that a stroll down any given corridor will give way to an audible land line ring is slim to none in the age of cell phone dominance.
Freshman Allister Chang, who lives in Tilton Hall, said he doesn't know any students on his floor who use their phone jacks for a landline phone. In fact, Chang claims that even if he did choose to purchase a phone for the jack, he wouldn't know how to be reached.
"If I was given a phone number, I don't remember it at all," Chang said.
According to university records, though, a significant — albeit declining — proportion of students still have landline phones.
Their obsolete status, therefore, mostly stems from the fact that those that own them hardly ever put them to use.
John McKeigue, the manager of Tufts' Voice Communications Services, tests the use of phone jacks each year over a one-month period. His results from 2006 and 2007 indicate that roughly 1,700 out of 2,250 jacks were in use. This is down from 1,980 in 2005.
Although these numbers indicate high rates of phone ownership, the purposes of landlines in dorms remain questionable.
"I remember last year someone in my Wren suite had a landline phone in her dorm, and the only reason we'd use the number was to prank call her," junior Sara DeForest said. "I don't think she really got any other calls on it."
Senior Nicole Butler also recalled that the phone in her freshman dorm room was not typically used by friends.
"My roommate freshman year had a landline phone, but the only people who ever called her on it were telemarketers," Butler said.
Records from Voice Communications Services confirm the notion that while many students still opt to plug landline phones, few use them regularly.
In 2005, a total of 18,884 calls were made from landline phones in dorms during the one-month test period. In 2006 the number fell to 10,506 and in 2007 the figure plummeted again, resting at 5,741, or only 3.38 per active phone.
McKeigue explained that such trends will likely continue through each year's testing period.
"I just think it will trend down, because people oftentimes just want to use their cell phones — they don't want to go [to] two places to check their voicemail," McKeigue said. "I think wireless [phone service] provides advantages to mobile users that land service doesn't."
Students voiced similar sentiments, noting both price and general hassle as their primary qualms with landlines.
"I simply don't want to have two phones," junior Matt Horder said.
This trend also appears to be spreading to students who have moved to off-campus houses.
Junior Jess Sites, who lives in an off-campus house this year with friends, said that nobody she lives with has a landline. Her family, however, tried to push for the option.
"My dad tried to convince me to get a landline because that's what he was used to," Sites said. "But it cost an extra $40 a month to get one, so I decided just to stick with my cell phone."
For some, landline phones come along with the eventual purchase of a permanent home.
"I don't really anticipate getting a landline phone immediately after college," Sites said. "Maybe once I'm settled and can actually afford to pay for two phones, I'd look into it."
Still, even homeowners appear to be shedding their landline habits. According to statistics from CTIA, which is the international association for the wireless telecommunications industry, 8.4 percent of U.S. households (more than 24 million Americans) were relying exclusively on wireless options in 2006.
Butler, like an increasing number of Americans, said she has little desire for a landline phone.
"I don't think I plan on getting a landline phone when I graduate and move into my own house," she said. "At least not for a while — it would be just too expensive and too much of a hassle to have another phone line [in addition to my cell phone]."
