With the return of students to the Ames area, phone companies have been working overtime to ensure that everyone who wants a new phone number receives one in a timely fashion.

In order to prevent installation delays with the influx of students, US West has back-up numbers in all large campus towns, said Lynn Gipple, spokeswoman for the phone service company.

“Many students all want installation at the same time,” she said. “We try to beef up our manpower during this time to meet the demands in Ames or Iowa City.”

Gipple said five extra technicians are brought in to help with the demand during the month of August.

“It all relates to the fact that we have a short amount of time to do all this work compared to a normal month,” Gipple said. “We try to do it right the first time, but mistakes do happen.”

US West had been telling students that installation will take about two days, and Gipple said the company has been on schedule.

“We’re in pretty good shape now,” she said. “Most of the rush is over now.”

McLeodUSA, another telephone service provider in Ames, tells customers that it will take 10 to 14 business days for installation, a McLeod-USA customer service representative said.

There have been no delays in hooking up new phone numbers, and there have not been extra complaints from the Ames area in the last month, the representative said.

Jessica Stamp, senior in journalism and mass communication, said her recent attempt to get a phone line from McLeodUSA has been far from trouble-free.

Stamp called McLeodUSA a week before moving to Ames, she said. When McLeodUSA arrived to install phone service, a packaged deal including local and long-distance calling and Internet service, the technicians could not install the phone lines.

The old telephone line, provided by another carrier, had not yet been disconnected, Stamp said. But once the old line was disconnected, Stamp still had to wait more than a week for her provider to come back.

“It was frustrating to move to a new city and a new apartment and not have a phone to talk on for nine days,” Stamp said, adding that she still was waiting for the Internet service to be installed.

To compensate for her inconvenience, McLeodUSA waived the $30 activation fee and gave Stamp a $30 long-distance phone card.

Travis Mattson, senior in nutrition science and pre-medicine, also had problems getting his telephone line installed.

Mattson said he contacted US West to install the phone line, but the technicians went to the wrong apartment. Mattson went four days without a phone before US West fixed the problem.

Other students have faced only minor problems.

Josh Moore, senior in computer science, said US West hooked up his service on time but has failed to respond to a maintenance call with the same promptness.

“We have two lines, and line two mysteriously stopped working,” Moore said. “It’s a pain and an inconvenience to have to call US West to come out and fix the problem.”

Tracey Wolfe, junior in animal science and pre-veterinary medicine, said US West installed her phone lines on time but did not install the long-distance service. The company told her they did not have the request written down.

Wolfe said US West fixed the problem, but she had to go five days without long distance.

Not all students had problems hooking up the phone lines though.

Shaun Lindsay, junior in computer science, said he has had no problems with his McLeodUSA service.

“I didn’t call until the day I moved up to Ames and it took six days to receive service,” he said.

Iowa State offices haven’t had any problems with their telephone service, said John Kingland, director of telecommunications.

The university’s phone lines are provided by US West, and all number exchanges have gone smoothly, he said.