About 400 students at the University of the Virgin Islands are about to lose their home Internet access privileges because of a UVI cost-cutting move.
Students currently have free dial-up access for up to 32 hours per month from their residences — whether in dormitories or off campus — in addition to access via the various UVI computer laboratories on St. Thomas and St. Croix.
The administration has decided to terminate the service in June "based on analyses of the current and projected costs," according to the UVI student newspaper UVISION.
UVI director of information technology John Ackley says the service costs the University $20 to $30 per student per month, with the number of students ever increasing. Indeed, estimates are that by the year 2004 the school will have 3,500 students seeking residential online access. (The figure assumes that by then UVI will have students enrolled in electronic correspondence study programs.)
Ackley said the lowest rate available to private customers now would come to about $80 per semester. To cushion the blow of free dial-up cutoff, he spearheaded an effort to get local Internet service providers to offer a student discount of $3 to $5 per month below the commercial rate, but he found no takers.
He said he suspects two reasons for this: First, the industry tends to operate on a very small profit margin. And second, students as a group are notorious for hacking and spreading on- line viruses.
"Students will continue to have unlimited UVI network and Internet access from any computer in any of the many laboratories on both campuses," a UVI web advisory states. The site was set up to supply students with a listing of fees and service plans offered by local providers ù AT&T, Cobex, V.I. Access and Virgin Islands TeleSolutions.
UVI is encouraging the providers to make a local direct link with the University network, known as "peering," so that traffic for students at home will pass directly to and from the University, and not travel up and down the Internet backbone connections to the mainland. "Such local links will provide faster and more reliable service," the advisory states, as well as "benefit both the provider and the University by off loading the expensive backbone links."