The University of Vermont wants to eliminate landlines from dorms for the 2009-2010 school year. That makes sense. They’re becoming increasingly obsolete, and the university could save some money by tossing them, and their long distance rates, out the window. Yet some students — just 4 percent at UVM — do not have cell phones. What about them? There is one proposal on the table which readers here might find interesting: allowing students to sign out a prepaid cell phone for a certain period of time.

The issue has been put on hold for a number of reasons. One SGA senator made a long case against the idea:

“I’m a cell phone guy at Best Buy and I have a few issues with this,” senator Mike Glynne said during the SGA meeting. “Pre-paid phones are actually not cheap. You’re going to put a bigger burden on the University than help them.”

There are numerous disadvantages to pre-paid cell phones, Glynne said. They receive their service from other cell phone towers, the conversations can be heard on two-way radios and the minutes expire after 90 days.

“Pre-paid phones can be hacked very easily,” Glynne said. “Privacy gets thrown out the door. I think it would be better to try to have a plan than pre-paid.”

First off, prepaid phones can be cheap. From what I can tell of Boost Mobile’s coverage map, they cover Burlington, Vermont. So why not sign up for their unlimited plan? $50 per month, per dorm. Seems reasonable enough. Then students can sign out the phone and call home without worrying about racking up a bill. This also means the minutes wouldn’t expire after 90 days — they wouldn’t expire at all, because there are no minutes to use. Un-lim-i-ted.

Regarding the hacking argument, this is one I have not heard, so I cannot refute or confirm it. However, it sounds like a reach of an argument.

I want to say that such a plan, fueled by Boost Unlimited, could be a solution to UVM’s problem. However, I don’t know what their financial situation is. If they’re spending more than $50 per month per dorm on landline service, they could switch to one Boost Unlimited phone per dorm and allow students to sign it out. They could then go back and talk in the privacy of their own dorm room, for as long as the policy would allow (I’d presume a half hour) without worrying about racking up a bigger bill.

Posted By : Joe
Posted at : February 10th, 2009 - 11:00 am
Filed under : Prepaid Services