Stephen Kim '03 loves his gold, palm-sized Samsung 6100 cellular phone.
He waxes poetic about its voice-activation feature and the abundance of rings he can choose from.
Most of all, he praises its economy.
"I got it to make long-distance calls home because I think [Harvard's plan] rips you off," he says. "A cell is just more practical and you can get a lot of different uses out of it."
Kim is just one of millions of people worldwide joining the wireless troops.
But as more and more students move away from Harvard's phone system to more cost effective alternatives, Harvard may have to raise its phone rates to cover the costs of network wiring.
And Harvard says as its current service plans fast become outdated, it will consider some radical alternatives--including a University-wide voice-over IP Internet calling system--to ensure that UIS is not left behind by new communication trends.
"[The long-distance plan] is this big elephant sitting there," says Nancy M. Kinchla, director of Harvard's University Information Systems (UIS), "One of our goals this year is to do some strategizing because the entire technology of voice communications is changing."
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