With nearly all students having cell phones, colleges and universities are increasing pulling the plug on dorm room landlines.
Without landlines, some colleges will save tens of thousands of dollars in hardware and hook-up fees paid to phone companies. But the decision to make the change is not solely based on money. The reality is that this generation of college students is almost exclusively wireless.
"I could probably count on one hand the number of times I used the dorm phone,"said Andrew Forrester, a senior at Wabash College. "I used it just one year, when I was a freshman. But I received more calls from telemarketers than anything else."
The limited use of dorm phones reflects what's happening across the broader populace. Twenty-five percent of American homes have switched exclusively to using cell phones. In addition, industry estimates show 83 percent of today's 17-year-olds (tomorrow's college students) have their own cell phones, up from 64 percent five years ago.
Ball State University marketing Professor Michael Hanley, whose campus still uses landlines, has conducted nearly a dozen student surveys since 2005 and estimates cell phone usage is nearly universal on the campus - 99.8 percent of all students have them; 9 out of 10 use smartphones with Internet technology; and a growing number are using text messaging rather than sending e-mail. His survey results are similar to the national rate use on other campuses.
The opportunity for businesses that adopt a mobile presence is timely and it is obvious. Trends clearly indicate an ever accelerating adoption by users of cell phones and especially smartphones for primary access to voice and data. Time spent on the devices also continues to increase with the ever growing variety of rich content including: social media, entertainment, news, special offers, coupons and the like.
The message for businesses especially retailers: create a presence now on the mobile web and in the various app sites (iPhone Store, Android Market) to reach and interact with this mobile audience, keep them engaged with interesting content and timely offers, and you'll have a great opportunity to establish a long term consumer relationship with not only an individual but due to the viral nature of mobile technology, with his or her friends and family as well.
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