Telephone Co. Suspects Cheating on Extensions, Threatens Fall Offensive

New England Telephone Company is directing a search-and-destroy mission against illegal phone extensions in the Harvard Houses. The company suspects that many students are using stolen equipment to make the illegal hook-ups.

According to a Bell Telephone spokesman, a customer installing an "unauthorized attachment" is "getting something without paying for it," a situation of concern to the company.

In Mather House, Bell Telephone claims to have detected 15 extensions by calling students' numbers and listening to the ring of both phones.

In some houses, people living in single rooms cannot share a telephone because standard phone wires do not reach from one room to another, and company has refused to install phones accessible to several rooms at once.

Going Underground

Most phone cords contain four colored wires: red, green, black, and yellow. Students who go underground with their extensions connect all but the yellow wires, which operate the bell.

Says one Mather House senior, "When those people from the phone company first came they only knew about one of our illegal extensions-we had disconnected the bell on the other one. But when we showed it to them, they actually seemed quite impressed."

Meanwhile, the fall offensive continues. In the words of one company spokesman, "The end is in sight."