The College added a wide variety of new features to student telephones over winter break including call-waiting, last-number redial and automatic callback.
The new telephone system, installed by the Office of Telephone Services on Dec, 16, also eliminates the crosstalk problems of the old telephone service.
Director of Administrative Services Marcia Colligan said the switch to a new telephone system went well considering the size of the change.
As part of the switch-over, the prefix for student phone numbers was changed from "640" to "646" and students with numbers in the "4000" series changed to "7000" with the last three digits remaining the same.
According to Colligan, phone numbers from "5000" to "5099" were also changed. Students with numbers in this range were notified of their new numbers at the end of Fall term, she said.
Individuals wishing to make calls between campus numbers must now dial "6" and then the four-digit extension number.
Colligan said that Telephone Services has received positive feedback about the new system.
"In general, people like the new system," Colligan said. "It takes a bit of time for people to get used to the change in the digital equipment, so there is a learning curve, but the consensus is that the system is a big improvement over the old dimension."
But she said that some students have had problems dialing off-campus numbers because they have not waited long enough after dialing "9" to dial the phone number.
The changes to the telephone system were funded through the College's budget. "There are no additional charges for any features," she said.
The College, this winter and spring, is also looking into adding voice mail services Colligan said. She said there would be a charge for voice mail if it is implemented.
The new state-of-the-art system is capable of handling 12,000 telephone lines, 7,000 more than the old system.
An orange card labeled "telephone dialing instructions" explaining the changes was sent out to each student who has a telephone using the College's switching equipment.
