[280] in Resnet-Forum
Re: Connection Fees for Residence Halls
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dane Spearing)
Thu May 26 17:15:35 1994
Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 13:57:43 -0700
From: Dane Spearing <dane@rescomp.stanford.edu>
To: MATT@olin.centre.edu, resnet-Forum@MIT.EDU
>We are in the process of installing the equipment to provide access
>from our dorm rooms. The discussion is being broken down into a
>number of parts. 1) Do we charge students for connections in dorm
>rooms, If so how much? 2) Do we charge overall for a network account,
>Even for those students not bringing computers to connect in their
>dorms? What are the rest of you doing. If you would like to reply to
>me directly, I will provide a summary to the list of the response I
>get. If this is in a FAQ somewhere, I would appreciate a nudge in the
>proper direction.
Obviously, there is no "right" answer to this question. The one
given in supplying inroom connections it that it does cost a finite
amount to install and support them, and this money must come from
somewhere. For a few lucky institutions, the administration has
deemed in-room connections to be an important enough resource to
incorporate the overhead costs into their overall budget planning.
For other institutions, this cost is passed on to the students in some
manner. There are essentially two ways to do this that I see:
* Charge only those students who use the in-room connections.
* Distribute the cost equally among all students.
The first method is more "fair" in that only those that use the
resources are being charged for them. However, in the long run I
believe that individual billing probalby costs more because there is
the additional overhead of dealing with the billing system. In terms
of efficiency, I believe that the latter method is better. Equally
distribute the charge (to, say, the tuition bill or the room & board bill).
Here at Stanford, we believe that in-room connections are a vital part
of the academic and learning experience. We are very near to our goal
of providing in-room connections to all on-campus residences (80+% are
now wired). These costs are incorporated into the housing bill, and
by the overall university budget.
All students can also get a free Unix account with a disk quota of 2 Mb.
Just my 2 cents.
DANE SPEARING | Residential Computing | (415) 723-4800
Assistant Director | Stanford University |------------------------->
Sys Support & Development | Stanford, CA 94305 | dane@rescomp.stanford.edu
http://rescomp.stanford.edu/~dane/dane.html
