While Penn State administrators have considered eliminating phones in dorm rooms, changes discussed at an early December meeting will not take place anytime soon.

Fraser Grigor, associate director of special projects for Housing and Food Services, said a task force that is looking into the benefit of having landlines in dorm rooms addressed how eliminating the phones would affect students at the meeting.

The task force is concerned with how many minutes students use on their cell phones, possible safety issues concerning coverage, the current lack of a long-distance contract, and cost issues associated with cell phones and the current landline, Grigor said.

While the idea is a new one, Tom Gibson, associate vice president of auxiliary and business services, said an overall increase in cell phone use and decrease in home phone use is one reason for the investigation.

"We are at the exploratory stage," Gibson said.

Grigor said no decisions were made at the meeting because more information needs to be gathered before a recommendation is made to Housing and Food Services, which currently provides each dorm room on campus with a phone line.

"This being the first meeting, the committee is certainly a long way from generating any comparison data or reaching any recommendations," Penn State spokesman Tysen Kendig said in an e-mail message. "[But] it's a question worth asking."

Gibson said nothing would change for the fall semester, and the earliest change could be fall 2006. Grigor said he has an open mind and does not know if there will be any change.

Meghan Ashley (freshman-division of undergraduate studies) said she would not be affected since neither she nor her roommate uses the phone.

Ashley also said that without dorm phones, there might be less soliciting by telemarketers.

"Every time I pick up [the dorm phone], it's telemarketers," said Diana Mysliwiec (sophomore-division of undergraduate studies). "For as little as I use it, I don't really care."

Mysliwiec said the phones would only be useful for emergencies if a cell phone's battery died.

Others also believe that dorm phones can sometimes be used in place of cell phones.

"People might use it to not use up their cell phone minutes, but not a lot of people are like that," Nahar Albudoor (freshman-advertising) said.

Albudoor said neither she nor her roommate uses the dorm phone, and she does not think the change would generally affect anyone.