One of HSTO's innovations was to activate lines before students arrive on campus. By getting lists of students and their addresses from the Registrar's Office, the HSTO automatically activate all suite lines.

If a room has more than one student, the HSTO randomly assigns one student to be the "line-owner," the person who pays the monthly line fees.

If a student contacts the HSTO in the first month, however, and changes an aspect of their service, the HSTO will make them the "line-owner."

Determining the "line-owners" and tracking more than 6,000 accounts takes time, Wise says, and explains why the September bills were late.

When a "line-owner" does not pay a bill over $5, HSTO sends a reminder and then disconnects the student's line after 60 days. When a student who has not paid a phone bill is about to graduate, HSTO contacts the Registrar's office and attempts to withhold the degree.

HSTO has taken this step only once in recent years, Wise said. More common is the use of a collection agency to attempt to recover unpaid bills.

Deliberate abuse of the phone system is rare, according to Wise. In recent years, Wise says he knows of only one student who attempted to run up high phone bills and graduate without paying them. The student was caught.

Although the PAC codes that HSTO distributes could lend themselves to abuse, Wise says that because of the "character and integrity of Harvard students, it really hasn't been a problem."

Only one student has gone before the Administrative Board since the PAC system was set up for deliberately misusing codes, according to Wise.

"It's not hard to find out someone else's PAC number," Wise said. "But we know what number you dialed from, and what number you dialed to. We can run a check to see everyone who has ever dialed the number you dialed."

Wise said that this sort of search is easy to do, because HSTO maintains its records as a database. But he said it is rarely done. He said that HSTO records have never been subpoenaed by a court.

While some critics of HSTO claim that it is a monopoly and others worry that it permits invasions of student privacy, Wise says that he is only too happy to address undergraduate concerns.

"There is a very vocal one percent of students who are very interested in their phone bills. I don't mind them--that's what makes my job interesting," Wise says.