Penntrex and 74 students cross wires

Over the past week, Superblock residents have suffered through cold spells, icy showers, and the perpetual problem of slow elevators. In addition to all that, the occupants of approximately 74 rooms can't even call home to tell Mom. Due to what Penntrex General Manager Darien Yamin said was a major rewiring of telephone cables, phone lines in several rooms in the High Rises have gone dead. Yamin added that phone cables used to lead to a number of buildings, but Bell of Pennsylvania is now trying to centralize the cables. "That work has resulted in the kinds of problems we're experiencing," he said. Yamin said that he was not sure where the cables are being channeled. Penntrex Records Analyst Cheryl Horne said that no particular area of the High Rises is being affected more than any other, and that complaints have been scattered. "We've had more complaints than normal," Horne said, adding that the rewiring will most likely be finished by the end of the week. Yamin said that although Penntrex has received 74 complaints of dead phone lines in the High Rises since Saturday, the situation is not as bad as it seems. "There are 4,200 phone lines on campus that serve the residential population, and [the phones with problems] are only a small percentage of the lines on campus," Yamin said. But Yamin did acknowledge that the abnormally high number of complaints was indicative of a problem. "No matter how small of a percentage it is, being without service is still being without service," he said. Horne said some locations do not have the cable to blame for their service problems, and instead should check their individual phones and wiring.

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