Students and their parents pay thousands of dollars every semester in tuition, classroom fees and other expenses, but those biannual bills could be slightly less costly if university voicemail services are amended.

Currently, every on-campus student is charged a $12 fee each semester for voicemail services from the university provided telephone in his or her residence hall room. That is unless students file the proper paperwork with the Telecommunications Office in 200 Robertson Hall within three weeks of the start of the semester.

According to legislation unanimously passed at the Tuesday meeting of Associated Student Government (ASG), this process needs to be reversed so that students may request the voicemail service themselves rather than cancel an automatically charged service.

This may soon happen since, according to Director of Information Technology (IT) Services Customer Relations Cathy McVey, plans to change the current system have been in the works for several years.

"We want to communicate to ASG that we know there's a problem and we're working to change it," McVey said.

IT Services is currently searching for an outside vendor to switch Miami's phone system over to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). McVey explained that the new VoIP telephones would be an Internet-based system that combines local and long distance calling with voicemail services into one package.

McVey said that beginning this fall, phones will no longer be placed in residence hall rooms unless a student requests to have a phone. Students who request this service will then be charged a monthly fee for the phone service package.

First-year ASG Senator Heath Ingram, who authored the ASG bill, claims that the current system only frustrates students and parents.

"I think it only serves to breed animosity towards the institution," Ingram said. "Some students don't even know they have it."

Ingram was especially concerned for first-year students who are still acclimating themselves to college life and don't realize they have the option to cancel their voicemail service.

"A first semester freshman's first three weeks are the most overwhelming weeks of their semester," Ingram said. "Canceling their voicemail is at the bottom of their list of priorities."

Although students may have found the voicemail service highly useful when it was first offered at Miami in 1992, Ingram explained that the service is not as useful for today's Miami students.

"It's such an outdated way of doing business," Ingram said. "Most students use cell phones and the landlines in rooms are hardly ever used."

Before this semester's cancellation deadline Jan. 30, several ASG senators attempted to obtain copies of the cancellation paperwork for their residence halls, but their requests were denied by staff at the Telecommunications Office.

According to Chris Gable, a student senator representing Wells and Bishop halls, the office staff refused to give him copies of the form unless he signed a waiver accepting the responsibility if "anything went wrong."

Anne Towne, vice president of student services, also tried to obtain copies but said that the staff seemed confused by her request and she left empty-handed.

"They don't want to be heckled with it because it means a change in the system," Towne said. "I see why they don't want to be bothered, but they should want to be bothered. Their service is here to help the students."

Not all of ASG's attempts to obtain cancellation forms were prevented. Adam Harris, a student senator representing Elliott, Ogden and

Stoddard halls, was able to obtain a stack of forms for residents of those halls.

"I was the first one to go in and actually ask for papers. I think I caught them off-guard," Harris said.

Harris strongly agrees that the system needs to be reviewed and modified so that it is more convenient for students.

"It's a pretty shady operation, making students opt-out," Harris said. "No student has to go to Robertson Hall for anything, ever. It's kind of astounding that the university can make it easy for us to purchase an $80 refrigerator or a $250 air conditioner, but not opt in or out of $12 voicemail online. It should be just as easy."

According to McVey and Courtney Cochran, president of the Residence Hall Association (RHA), IT Services is currently seeking student input on the proposed new telephone system.

Students from ASG and RHA will participate in the forum on the new telephone system. Cochran invited any interested students to come participate in the discussion at 1 p.m. Feb. 11 in 309 Hoyt Hall.