A few days ago, Jennifer Lai heard the sound of a phone ringing in her suitemate’s room. But instead of hearing the tune of “SexyBack” coming from a cell phone, she was startled to hear the basic ring of a landline phone.
“I was like, “˜What was that?'” Lai, a first-year pre-psychology student, said. “”˜Is that a cell phone?'”
Lai’s reaction reflects the perspective on technology many college students have today. As technological advances in communication become more accessible, students are increasingly relying on their cell phones rather than landline phones to conduct calls.
“My suitemate is the only person I know who has a working landline,” said Lai, who lives in Hedrick Summit. Though all the residential buildings on the Hill are equipped with main-line phones, students have to purchase an additional service in order to make calls outside of the residential Hill.
UCLA Communications Technology Services offers a calling plan that allows students to make or receive calls across campus for $17.60 a month or in the local area for $19.10 a month. In addition, there is a charge of $0.01 per minute for local calls, $0.015 per minute for calls to numbers 12 to 16 miles away, and $0.035 per minute for calls to numbers 16 or more miles away within the United States.
In many cases, students living both on the Hill and elsewhere are opting to reject the landline option and rely on their cell phones to make calls.
In 1994, several thousand students, faculty, and staff living on the Hill purchased a calling plan from Communications Technology Service, according to Michael Schilling, the director of CTS.
But over the past decade, there has been a steady decline in CTS calling plan purchases. According to Schilling, this year, less than 500 people purchased a plan, and the majority of them were faculty and staff members.
“(My roommate) and I discussed whether we should buy the landline at the beginning of the year,” Lai said. “But we thought, “˜Why do we need it if we have cell phones?'”
According to the International Telecommunications Union, the number of households with landlines across the U.S. has increased from 54.73 percent in 1990 to 60.60 percent in 2004, whereas the percentage of people who subscribe to a cell phone plan has increased from 2.12 percent in 1990 to 62.11 percent in 2004.
Tim Groeling, a communication studies professor who has taken an interest in the issue, assigns this phenomenon to two causes.
“First, college students are at an age where they’re changing locations more, so it’s better for them to take a phone with them,” Groeling said.
Lai said the convenience of having a portable phone played a role in her decision not to purchase a landline.
“If I’m not in my room, it’s inconvenient if the (landline) phone rings. My roommate would have to pick up and take a message,” Lai said. “It’s easier to call my cell phone, because I always pick it up.”
Groeling said the second reason for the decrease in landline usage among college students is that many young people are making the phone investment for the first time.
“College students don’t come into their first phone decision with a landline in place, so they have to decide, “˜Should I get a landline or a cell phone?’ For people who do not already have an investment in a landline, the cell phone is the most economical,” Groeling said.
A representative of AT&T said cell phones also have an advantage because they can cater to multiple consumer demands simultaneously.
AT&T has also detected a greater customer interest in the integration into one service plan of wireless, landline, entertainment and Internet services over the past decade.
“Clearly the 21st century communications are a lot different than they were before,” said Steven Smith, an AT&T spokesman.
“What we see the trend as being is that customers want fully integrated communication and entertainment services. Customers, more and more across the board, want to integrate their services.”
William Man, a graduate student in geotechnical engineering, attributed the decrease in landline purchases to a variety of factors, from comparative expense to inconvenience to generational differences.
“My parents have a landline because they’re used to having one at home,” Man said. “But the cell phone is more convenient for me (because) I can carry it wherever I want. The cell phone industry is also so competitive, I don’t have to pay that much,” Man said.