University Business - January 2007 - (Page 38)

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The strategy is beneficial for institutions since it brings in revenue, and roof rights access has become particularly competitive in the last few years. “Partnering with companies like T-Mobile and Cingular can be very beneficial,” says Doug Kudravetz, assistant vice president for finance at American University D.C. . “These deals can create opportunities not only with voice services, but also with a broader wireless plan.” The university provided both companies with access to its antenna systems in exchange for rate plan discounts for AU students and staff. In 2005, all hardwire telephone service was discontinued in residence halls, and students were steered toward the Cingular plans an effort that experienced a good conversion rate, Kudravetz notes . The University of Notre Dame Ind. set up a different kind of partnership with AT&T—outsourcing telecommunications service for faculty and staff office telephones after phone service was removed from residence halls. The university is currently looking at developing a cellular resale program with Cingular and AT&T and is talking with Rave Wireless about implementing service plans. Rave has focused on promoting the benefits of its mobile phone program, which bundles applications and services. More than 100 IHEs are reportedly either implementing the program or in discussions with the vendor. Those that have signed up include Georgetown University D.C. , The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and California State University, Monterey Bay. Rave’s mobile pro“There’s a shift in grams are tailored to the institution. For communications and if we, example, at Allen as a college, don’t address University S.C. , stuit, we stand to lose a connec- dents are given phones preloaded with Rave’s tion with our students.” wireless applications. —Keith Fowlkes, St. Mary’s College But at Georgetown, students use their own phones and are given access to Rave features through the wireless company’s service. With either configuration, programs allow students to receive broadcast alerts that are sent out to individual students or large groups, get e-mail, tap into the campus directory, or participate in classroom surveys. In general, IHEs seem to be moving slowly toward developing more partnerships, says Rodger Desai, chief executive officer at Rave. Many aren’t putting in new landlines and are sometimes removing what currently exists, but the pace is far from rapid in inking new deals with vendors. “Many institutions don’t want to make new investments,” he notes. “They are trying to decide whether it’s better to have some landlines for security reasons, or to increase cellular coverage, and that can be a difficult decision.” 38| January 2007 PHOTO BY JEFF WATTS, COURTESY OF AMERICAN UNIVERSITY Many American U students signed on with Cingular after hardwire phone service was discontinued in dorms. PHONE COMPANY St. Olaf College Minn. is taking a novel approach to gain communications-based revenue. Rather than relying on partnerships with cell carriers, St. Olaf ’s telecommunications department decided to create its own phone company, effectively becoming a competitive local exchange carrier CLEC , which competes with local phone providers to offer landline service. Carleton College, also located in the town of Northfield, uses St. Olaf ’s service. St. Olaf officials were looking for a way to cut telecommunications costs when they found revenues slipping because of cell phone use. Also, their town was added to the local calling zone for the Twin Cities after being long distance in the past. “We became a CLEC to save some money,” says Craig Dunton, director of telecommunications for both St. Olaf and Carleton. “We’re used to doing things ourselves, so we invested in installing our own fiber optic and copper cable.” Dunton had approached college officials in 1997 with the idea, and administrators expressed hesitancy about getting into the phone business, but Dunton kept talking over the years and they began to see the sense of his vision. It helped that rates from the local company, Qwest, had been climbing higher and higher. The installation of a fiber cable between St. Olaf and Carleton not only gave the colleges high-speed internet, but created an infrastructure that encircled downtown Northfield. St. Olaf began selling internet services to the town to make up for landline revenue loss, and then its leaders decided to install a microwave system to boost coverage. The microwave was $400,000, according to Dunton, but it saves the colleges $29,000 per month in access charges. universitybusiness.com MA 11:03:9 60/81/21 83 ddni.dnaL Warning : Unknown : The session id contains invalid characters, valid characters are only a-z, A-Z and 0-9 in Unknown on line 0 Warning : Unknown : Failed to write session data files . Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct /var/lib/php/session in Unknown on line 0 http://universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - January 2007

Contents
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Editor's Note
Sense of Place
Stats Watch
People Watch
Viewpoint
Human Resources
Money Matters
Marketing
Financial Aid
Community Colleges
Missed Connections
Escuse Me: Can you Spare a Million?
The Associate
Media Relations Boot Camp
Admissions Administrators Speak Out
Business Technology
What's New
Calendar of Events
Direct Connect
End Note

University Business - January 2007