Tests show blue light phones work

But the 15 new, cellular blue-light phones take longer to contact police. The new, cellular blue-light emergency telephones are fully functional, but they take longer to connect to University Police than phones using the old technology do, according to a recent Daily Pennsylvanian test of the phones. Although Division of Public Safety officials acknowledged that the new type of phones have a longer connect time, they said the phones have many other advantages. For example, the phones regularly test themselves, and if the test is unsuccessful, police are instantly notified. In addition, officials stressed that even if a student must leave a phone before it connects to police, the phone still automatically transmits its location, ensuring that police officers are dispatched to the site. Shane Lipson, president of Penn Watch, the University's student-run town watch group, said he agrees that the advantages of the new phones outweigh the possible disadvantage of a longer connect time. "Penn Watch has had the opportunity to work with the old phones," said Lipson, an Engineering and Wharton senior. "You never knew which ones worked and which ones didn't, so it's more advantageous to have phones that you know work." Under the supervision of a Public Safety official, the DP tested nine of the 15 new emergency phones and four of the 150 old phones Wednesday. The newer models had an average connect time of 14.7 seconds, compared with an average connect time of 6 seconds for the four old phones tested. The new phones' connect time ranged from 12 seconds to 21 seconds, while the old phones' connect time ranged from 5 seconds to 7 seconds. For the new phones, Public Safety officials report a testing range of 7 seconds to 22 seconds. All of the new phones tested connected on the first try, but two of the old phones required multiple attempts before the phones worked. The new phones -- which cost Penn about $5,500 each -- transmit their information through a cellular signal back to University Police, while the older phones are directly connected via a wire. In addition, the new phones use solar power and have a blue strobe light on the top of the pole on which the phones are installed. The old phones use traditional power and have a blue light at eye level. According to Director of Security Services Stratis Skoufalos, the University plans on installing about 60 of the new phones throughout campus and in some off-campus locations. "The on-campus strategy is to have a phone placed at every intersection, and, in some cases, replace some hard-wire phones," Skoufalos said. The installation of the new phones began during the first week of March, 16 months after officials first announced they would start the process. Following a September 1996 crime wave that culminated in the shooting of a Penn student, officials said that the new phones would be installed in November of that year. Various technical and bureaucratic problems, however, prevented timely installation of the new phones. Comarco Inc., a wireless-technology company in Yorba Linda, Calif., is supplying the new phones. The technology provides an increased level of safety for people on the University's campus, officials said. Security Project Coordinator Dominic Ceccanecchio, who is helping oversee the phone installation, said that "the problem with the old phones is that we wouldn't know if [one] wasn't working." The new phones have self-testing features which report any problems, including cut phone cords and jammed doors, to Public Safety, Ceccanecchio said. The older phones do not have these features. Also, the new phones are "a lot easier to install," since they do not require wires to be laid underground, according to Ceccanecchio. As a result, more blue-light phones can be installed at outlying campus locations that did not previously have them. Skoufalos stressed that the phones are not only for emergency purposes -- they can also be used by patrol officers to communicate with headquarters, reporting illness or injury or to request police assistance for non-emergency situations.

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