Converting from State to Personal Cellular Service



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Converting from State to Personal Cellular Service

Everyone who has a State paid cell phone should plan on converting to a personal plan by (or before) September 1, 2004. Department administrators will have to process pay supplements in the amount of $65/month for all employees who are switched from State paid cell phones to personally owned cell phones. The department head must approve all of these actions.

Cingular, Verizon and NexTel are the predominant service providers for State paid phones. These carriers are willing to convert existing State paid phones to personal contracts and they will make their representatives available to meet with employees. (Telecommunications will coordinate this activity with the carriers.) With number portability, employees may keep their same phone number. UT-H will relinquish its right to the phone numbers that it currently pays for.

Employees are under no obligation to stay with their current carrier and are encouraged to find the plan that best meets their needs. Termination fees may apply if the service is under contract and the employee changes carriers. Termination fees are the obligation of the department or employee.

With cellular phone technology changing so rapidly, employees would be better off getting a new phone when they sign up for cellular service in their own name. The carriers usually offer a variety of free phones with their service plans.

A few users have special phones and services that they would like to keep and pay for. In most cases, the university will not be using these phones and they will be declared surplus. Telecommunications should be notified of these cases. Telecommunications will decide whether or not the phone will be surplus to the university and establish a value. The President can authorize the sale of surplus equipment to employees once it is declared surplus and a fair value has been established. This will all be handled through Telecommunications. This should not be handled by individual employees or departments on their own.