Chad Chaney walks a quarter-mile from his dorm room to use a pay phone.
His roommate often is on the phone, and Chaney turns to pay phones to call his girlfriend and friends.
The history junior has a cell phone but doesn’t use it often.
“I’m stingy with my minutes,” Chaney said. “I don’t like to use it when I don’t have to. Pay phones save minutes and always have good reception.”
But Chaney has noticed pay phones on campus are disappearing.
“It’s really frustrating,” said Chaney. “I used to walk half a block; now it’s hard to find a good pay phone, one that’s not noisy.”
Chaney will have to look even harder in the future to find pay phones. There won’t be any on campus by the end of this year.
BellSouth removed about half of the University’s pay phones during the past year, and the 20 to 30 remaining phones will be removed this year, according to Lisa Snedigar, telecommunications research specialist.
Most students haven’t been bothered by the decreasing number of pay phones.
“When you don’t use it, you don’t look for it,” said Aaron Larose, an ISDS junior. “It’s been four or five years since I’ve used a pay phone.”
BellSouth is getting out of the pay phone business, explained Telecommunications Associate Director Ric Simmons.
“At every pay phone, BellSouth makes a quarter, 35 cents, for a call,” Simmons said. “How many people use pay phones has dropped drastically. Cell phone use has exploded and driven the revenues down.”
Meghan Scott, a nursing sophomore, agrees.
“I’ve had my cell phone for two years,” she said. “I’ve never used a pay phone since then. Every time I see one, I think they’re dirty. They aren’t kept up.”
BellSouth spokesman Tom Boggs said the decision to drop pay phones affects not only the University.
“It is companywide,” he said. “We operated 149,000 pay phones in a nine-state area. Now it’s down to a lot less than that.”
Beginning in 1998, BellSouth’s pay-phone usage figures took a nosedive, Simmons said.
Simmons gave University departments with pay phones a choice to pay $60 per month to BellSouth to continue pay phone service or have their phones removed.
“Every department we contacted elected to remove the pay phones,” Simmons said.
Some of the pay phones are being replaced with regular phones.
“We found the company who made the BellSouth phones, and they make a coinless phone,” said Simmons. “Some departments are buying the coinless phones and installing the LSU dial tone — use five digits on campus, dial nine to call off campus.”
So far, 12 of these coinless courtesy phones have been installed on campus.
However, Simmons said it is up to the individual departments to decide to replace the pay phones.
Union Business Manager Dave Besse said the Union is looking at options for its 10 pay phones but has not made a decision yet.
Besse knows the Union will have to do something to replace the phones.
“Our phones generated a fairly good amount of revenue and met their minimum requirement,” he said.
The Union’s options include buying pay phones and operating them themselves or installing coinless phones.
Either way, the cost will fall on the Union. Until a year ago, the Union received a portion of the money from the pay phones, about $800 to $1,500 a year, Besse said. Courtesy phones may cost up to $1,200, plus the cost of the phone.
On the other hand, if the Union puts in pay phones, it receives the revenue but has to pay for maintenance and upkeep, even for someone else to take the money from the phone.
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