Farewell to the Phone Office

The recent announcement that expanded local, University and 800-number phone calls will be included as part of Harvard’s termbill costs—essentially folding telephone service into the room rate, as is standard practice at most colleges—is a welcome improvement to the costly and inefficient Harvard telephone system.

Under the new plan, students would get next year’s local, University, and 800-number calls completely free, with termbill charges to begin the following year. This shift comes as Harvard outsources responsibility for long distance calling and billing to the telephone company Paetec, which will assume many of the functions of the Harvard Student Telephone Office (HSTO).

This change was long overdue, and we applaud those on the Student Affairs Committee of the Undergraduate Council who helped to broker the change in service. After being approached by the HSTO, the representatives explained the numerous student complaints about HSTO’s service. Students sometimes recieved no monthly bills only to be hit with a walloping balance after six months because of the phone service’s inefficient account management; students were charged exorbitant rates to use Harvard’s long distance plan; students were charged multiple times for the same service; students who have had trouble activating their individual phone lines; students have had their numbers incorrectly listed in the University directories for months. Now that the University will provide basic phone service to all undergraduates on campus and long distance calls will be handled by an outside company, HSTO should be dissolved.

In addition to the likely improvement in service, the new rates are a welcome change. All students will pay the same amount for basic telephone service, which is more fair than the current plan where students who live with more roommates pay less for phone service because more people split one bill. Students who live in singles could be paying five times as much for their phone service as each of the neighbors in a nearby five-person sweet. Additionally, by including the costs in termbills, the telephone office will be far more likely to collect the payments successfully. Currently, both because of inefficient account management and student delinquency, HSTO spends much time and money pursuing a number of students who owe hefty balances. Of course, students (and their parents) ought to know how much they are paying for phone service, and it should be enumerated separately on the termbill. But overall, a flat rate paid up front will both eliminate billing confusion and equalize phone costs.

This plan could expand the local calling area, a beneficial change from the current system where some nearby towns were covered and others were not. Paetec is also expected to offer lower long distance rates when it assumes responsibility for Harvard’s network, which will be a big relief for students who now are more often turning to cell phones and calling cards rather than suffer HSTO’s astronomical rates. By folding this phone service into the room rate, the added cost should be covered by many federal and College-sponsored financial aid programs.

These sweeping changes herald the end of HSTO, and of its mismanagement of the Harvard phone system. Phone service can only improve from here.