Hoping to capitalize on students’ preferred technology, colleges sell cellphone plans that supply campus information
Walk onto any college campus, and students chatting on cellphones are almost as ubiquitous as jeans and backpacks.
For the most part, college officials have grudgingly tolerated the behavior. Many don’t like it that students no longer make long-distance calls from land-line phones in dormitories, which used to generate a steady stream of revenue for colleges. And they are bothered that ringing phones and incoming text messages can distract students from class discussions.
But several colleges are now finding a way to benefit from students’ obsession with mobile phones. The institutions are collaborating with start-up companies to offer students access to campus-related information on cellphones, such as a notice about a canceled class, an alert about a change of venue for football practice, or an announcement posted on Blackboard, a course-management system.
The idea is that students will keep more closely abreast of campus events and connect with professors because cellphones accompany students wherever they go. Some college administrators are betting that the new phone services will become so popular that they will generate income for colleges.
Montclair State University, a largely commuter campus in northern New Jersey, this fall began offering the technology to students who have mobile-phone service from Sprint Nextel. To gain access to Montclair State’s service, students must have cellphones that can connect to the Web and use Global Positioning System technology. But since many students don’t have the specially equipped phones and don’t get service through Sprint Nextel, the university is offering them a plan that bundles the information service, a cellphone, calling minutes, and a certain number of text messages.
The bundled plan is free this semester for freshmen who live on the campus, and costs $180 to $355 a semester for other students. The university provides the service through a partnership with Rave Wireless Inc., a New York City-based company formed a year ago to offer cellphone features tailored to college students.
Under the plan, freshmen get a Motorola phone, a Sprint Nextel service plan that includes 50 minutes of voice time and 200 text messages a month, and access to a wide array of “channels,” or categories of information that can be displayed on the phone’s screen. One feature shows times at local movie theaters, another provides updates to the cafeteria menu, and a third uses GPS technology to track the progress of the campus shuttle buses. (Students can also view the channels from their computers via a password-protected Web site set up by Rave.)
“We wanted to take this generation’s preferred use of technology to enhance the learning environment and students’ sense of community,” says Susan A. Cole, president of Montclair State.
She says students favor connecting with others via cellphones instead of e-mail, which they view as an obsolete technology used “to communicate with old people.”
Montclair State is paying Sprint Nextel about $1-million for the year ending June 2006 to provide students with phones and service. And the university is paying Rave $124,000 to develop the Web site and the channels, and to negotiate with Sprint Nextel for the program. Eventually, the university expects to more than cover its expenses because students pay the university to join the plan. Students are charged each semester on their tuition bill.
The City University of New York’s Bernard M. Baruch College also started using Rave’s service this fall. Gloucester County College, in Sewell, N.J., is expected to reach an agreement with the company this year. And at least 10 other colleges will offer Rave channels to students next year, says Rodger Desai, Rave’s president and one of its founders.
The University of Florida this fall began providing students with a similar kind of phone service, using Mobile Campus, a year-old company in Gainesville, Fla. George Tingo, chief executive of Mobile Campus, says 38 other universities have signed deals or are in negotiations with his company to offer students campus-information text-messages via their cellphones. The University of Texas at Austin may provide Mobile Campus to students starting in January.
Mixed Views
At Montclair State, many students are enthusiastic about the new service. Of the 1,400 students who have chosen the plan, 960 have dropped the cellphone carrier they had when they arrived on campus and switched to Sprint Nextel so they could take advantage of the channels that Rave provides.
Still, 320 of the 1,035 freshmen who have the free phone service are reluctant to sever their relationship with the cellphone carrier they used before arriving at Montclair State.
As a result, many of them are carting around two cellphones. One of those is Jonathan D. Ballone, who says he uses Verizon off campus on one cellphone and the Rave service to communicate with friends on campus on his other phone.
He didn’t get rid of his Verizon service because he would have incurred a cancellation fee. And he doesn’t use the Rave phone to chat off campus because, he says, “the rates are unclear.” (Students who want to buy a snazzier phone or upgrade their Rave service to add minutes can choose from one of seven plans that range from $56 to $200 a semester.)
Another freshman, Joseph Kilpatrick, says he doesn’t even carry the Rave phone because he thinks the service is “obnoxious.” He doesn’t like its chirpy ring tone, says the phone is too small to use for e-mail, and is annoyed that the university includes in students’ tuition bill any charges they incur with the program. Mr. Kilpatrick says he is sticking with Verizon.
Other students also complain about the Rave phone’s high-pitched ring tone and students’ use of the phone’s walkie-talkie feature to communicate with friends, forcing others nearby to hear conversations they would rather not be privy to.
Several students, however, speak highly of the service, in part because Sprint Nextel offers a clearer and more reliable connection on the campus than other carriers, they say. Because of Montclair State’s agreement with the cellphone carrier, Sprint Nextel has invested in equipment to improve mobile coverage at the university.
“It’s the best connection on campus,” says Richina Smith, a sophomore. For the semester she is paying about $360 for the Rave phone and 1,000 minutes of talking time a month. She says that’s a good deal since, she figures, she would spend more for the same Sprint Nextel service that was not purchased through Montclair State.
Ms. Smith is especially fond of the walkie-talkie feature on the Rave phone that allows her to quickly connect with friends without dialing phone numbers.
A Verizon Deal?
Ms. Cole and Mr. Desai acknowledge that if the Rave service is to take off, other cellphone carriers besides Sprint Nextel need to work with Rave. Verizon is a popular carrier in northern New Jersey, and Rave is in negotiations with Verizon to provide Montclair State students with access to the Rave channels.
For this year, the first in the mobile-phone project, Montclair State is estimating that it will spend and take in about the same amount, $1.1-million. But if Verizon signs a deal with Montclair State, as expected this fall, then more students could sign up for the phone service, and the university’s revenue could rise, says Kathleen Ragan, Montclair State’s associate vice president for division administration, student development, and campus life.
Next semester the university also expects to earn more from freshmen because they will be charged $186 a semester for the same phone service they now get free. They get to keep the phone that was given to them in the fall.
Scott E. Siddall, director of instructional technology at Denison University, thinks that what Montclair State and other colleges are doing with mobile phones may become even more widespread because major telecommunications carriers like Sprint Nextel, Verizon, and Cingular Wireless are investing billions of dollars to upgrade their networks so data can be sent at high speeds to mobile devices. This so-called third-generation technology is attractive because people who use it can gain access to the Internet even when there’s no wireless hotspot nearby. (Montclair State students do not receive high-speed Internet service as part of the plan.)
If the cellphone carriers’ service proves popular, students may become less reliant on wireless broadband service provided through their colleges, Mr. Siddall says. That possibility could lead colleges to think twice about upgrading their wireless infrastructure. Mr. Siddall is the manager of an Educause e-mail list for college chief information officers.
“Now come along the cellphone providers, and they’re offering for $60 a month unlimited broadband access to these handheld devices,” says Mr. Siddall, throwing out a random price. “If enough students show up on campus with this, it may change some of our planning for the next round of wireless when our current infrastructure gets too old.”
Phone as Entertainment
Ms. Cole and other Montclair State administrators like to tout the practical and educational aspects of the Rave service, like the GPS technology that tracks the whereabouts of the campus shuttle.
Indeed, the top four channels used by students at Montclair State are those that feature the local weather forecast, Blackboard announcements, the location of shuttle buses, and university emergency phone numbers. But entertainment channels are also popular among students nationwide, such as one that has celebrity photographs.
Students can also create their own channels, and some have. Patrick L. McGrory, a freshman at Montclair State, created Bored in the Dorms, a blog that features random postings from students, informs others of parties, and, according to the blog, is “for anyone whose [sic] got nothing to do in the dorms.”
“I love writing the blog,” says Mr. McGrory. He says he initially thought the Rave service would be a waste of time and money, but now sees it as an asset. Aside from the blog, he also uses the Rave service to check his e-mail, class schedules, and grades.
Mr. Desai, of Rave, says his company will begin rolling out more education-oriented services on the mobile phones. On one channel, for example, Montclair State students could take academic quizzes, so their professors could quickly gauge whether students are grasping a concept. Another channel could help students connect with tutors in mathematics or some other academic field.
And because student safety is a big concern, Rave expects to soon roll out a program dubbed Guardian Angel. The service would be used mostly by students who are walking on the campus late at night alone and are nervous about being attacked. Using their cellphones, they would alert campus police that they are heading outside. A short time later — presumably after the students reach their destinations — the police would send to the students’ phones a beep or buzz that they would need to turn off. If the students didn’t turn it off after the second alert, then the police would track them down using GPS technology on the phones.
Other colleges using the Rave phone plan have different types of channels tailored to their students’ needs.
Students at Baruch, a nonresidential campus, make heavy use of the campus’s 15 computer labs. But without visiting each individual lab, it is hard for students to tell which labs have empty spots and which don’t. So the college is testing a cellphone channel that would allow students to see quickly which labs have free seats. One channel now in use allows students to see which study rooms on campus are available, and on another channel they can check which laptops are free for borrowing.
Baruch’s cellphone plan, called AirBaruch, also differs from Montclair State’s in that students can get their service through any mobile-phone carrier, and the college is not planning to make money off the service, says Arthur Downing, chief information officer at Baruch. He says that eventually students will be able to buy through the campus bookstore a Baruch-branded phone preconfigured with channels.
The University of Florida has a plan that provides text messages to students’ phones. Students who sign up for the service can receive announcements from professors, administrators, and campus groups.
But the most popular feature of the service is one that allows students to receive discount coupons on their phones to local restaurants and stores, says Joe J. Goldberg, a senior at Florida who is president of the university’s student government. To redeem the coupons, students simply show a store or restaurant clerk the text message on their phone.
Mr. Goldberg initiated the phone service. It is provided through Mobile Campus, which has a five-year contract with the university. Mobile Campus gets no money from the university, but instead relies on revenue from the advertisers that send out the coupons. The university also gets a cut of 10 percent to 15 percent of the revenue. During the first three weeks of the program, 1,000 of the university’s 50,000 students signed up for Mobile Campus.
The students also are entered into a weekly drawing to win an iPod Shuffle.
At Gloucester County College, a two-year institution planning to sign a deal with Rave, students could especially benefit from using their mobile phones to find out whether a class has been canceled or the campus is unexpectedly closed, says Steve DiFilipo, chief technology officer at the college.
“We have a lot of adult learners coming to campus after work, and a lot of students coming over the bridge from Philadelphia,” he says.
Down the road the college hopes to use the GPS technology that Montclair State is taking advantage of to let students know when buses transporting them in and out of campus will be at a certain stop.
“From an academic point of view, the mobile phone will be the next killer device,” predicts Mr. DiFilipo. “Forget iPods. iPods are history.”
http://chronicle.com Section: Information Technology Volume 52, Issue 12, Page A32