Some charge that HSTO can maintain high rates relative to discount programs because it enjoys a University-enforced monopoly on student service.

The office automatically assigns students to its service when they arrive on campus. In order to use carriers other than MCI, HSTO charges students a $5 surcharge per month for carrying the telephone service to a student's room.

"That we have to bribe Harvard $5 a month to use other services is absurd," says Pidot.

Pidot says the monthly fee is a disincentive for students to switch carriers and says that it makes HSTO a monopoly. He says he is considering pursuing the matter with the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities.

Wise says the fee levied by the office is not meant to be a deterrent but is necessary to help recoup the cost of rewiring the dorms several years ago. He says the $5 fee "probably doesn't even recover our costs."

When a student switches their service to New England Telephone, HSTO no longer bills the student and cannot take its percentage. So it levies a flat-rate charge on students who leave the system.

Wise says that HSTO does not pass on all of the savings it receives from its contract with MCI and New England Telephone. The office uses all of this money for its overhead costs, including daily operations, repairs and uncollectibles, he says. "We're not doing a direct pass-through on the long distance--anyone can figure that out," Wise says.

The Civil Liberties Union of Harvard (CLUH) investigated whether the HSTO-MCI lock on student service is illegal, according to Jol A. Silversmith '94, the group's former director. Federal law allows private telephone systems to restrict subscribers to a single carrier through the late 1990s, Silversmith says.

In addition to the $5 surcharge, students who want to subscribe directly to New England Telephone must jump bureaucratic hurdles--and get official College approval before making the switch.

First-years who call HSTO and request a service change are referred to the Freshman Dean's Office. The student then must set up an appointment and request permission to switch carriers, according to Lorri A. McDaniel, the office manager of the Freshman Dean's Office (FDO).

"It's more for our record keeping than anything else. Before a student switches service, we want to make sure that there is something wrong that we can fix," McDaniel said.

No one has ever questioned the legality of the policy, which has been in effect for over five years, she says, adding that she will raise the issue at the next FDO staff meeting.

Besides determining rates, HSTO's other major tasks are to bill students and to field repair calls.

Even though HSTO revamped its billing system this year, many students received their September and October bills late. Wise said that the September period is the most hectic of the year, as the HSTO must activate all its student lines and determine whom to bill for each of them.

In the past, students had to request activation of their telephone lines after they arrived on campus. Since all student lines were activated within a two to three week period, many students complained about the significant lagtime before they had workable telephone service.