<p>excerpted from housing services website faq… </p>
<p>Q: Should I bring a telephone? How does the telephone system work? </p>
<p>A: Students must provide their own phone (any UL approved phone will work well since the phone lines are analog). Students receive free campus and local calling, but must pay for all other calls by signing up for, and using their personal authorization code provided when joining the MobileSphere U-Talk program. </p>
<li><p>what is UL?</p></li>
<li><p>i’m planning to buy a cell phone when i arrive on the states, and um…
is joining the MobileSphere U-Talk program mandatory? i clicked on
MobileSphere U-talk Program linked, but i couldn’t understand what it is…
is there any limit on my buying a cell phone?
i basically cannot understand the answer… lol<br>
is it like that i should report cmu that i bought a cell phone from a
certain company with certain billing system…? </p></li>
</ol>
<p>sounds silly, i know, but i’m very confused…:(</p>
<p>I think that the MobileSphere U-Talk program is a way to use your wall-attached phone in your dorm room to call long distance. If you plan on using a cell phone for long distance, don’t worry about it.</p>
<p>As far as a know, all normal phones work, though many people don’t actually use the phones in their dorm room. I would suggest not buying one, but bringing one if you have room in your suitcase for a phone that’s laying around your house. I think with UL there’s an implication that there are phones for digital lines, and those don’t work.</p>
<p>UL means Underwriters Labs. It is on most electrical (plug in) stuff (look at the underside of your toaster, coffeemaker, etc.) I think it means it passed some sort of minimum safety requirements.
I got my daughter a phone at Target last August (cordless, answering machine, UL approved) for $10.
However, KrazyKow is correct, she never used it (until she lost her cell phone).</p>
<p>okay…thanks krazykow and rlm919!
um… do people usually bring phones used at home or buy a new one to the campus and plug it in their dorms and use it? until now i thought that people usually use cell phones, not the phones like we use at home…</p>
<p>I brought one from home, but I never used it because I always used my cellphone. Since everyone is from different places, calling their cell phones is long distance, so really you can call only other rooms from the phone-like-home.</p>
<p>I used my phone to call room to room and also to CMU offices (the HUB, etc.), so it was worth the $5 or so I spent on it. It’s nice because there are phones all over campus you can call your room with, in case you need to wake up your roommate or something else like that.</p>