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ASU tests cellphones for dorm access

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Cellphones allow students to keep in touch with family members or play video games to pass the time. Soon, they could be used as dorm room keys.

A four-week pilot program that ended earlier this month allowed students at Palo Verde Main on the Tempe campus to ditch their Sun Card keys for a cellphone.

“This is a brand new technology that has never been done in the United States before,” ASU Director of Business Applications Laura Ploughe said.

Twenty-seven students and five ASU staff members were given a phone with a three-month contract including unlimited data and texts. Technology creator HID Global, an identity security business, provided the phones.

The phones have to be near-field communication enabled for this technology to work, Ploughe said. NFC allows the exchange of data between devices that are in close proximity to each other — in this case, a cellphone and a key reader.

The new Blackberry phones Bold and Curve are the only cellphones on the market with this capability.

Cellphones functioning as keys add another layer of security as well because of the pin codes that can be set on phones, Ploughe said.

“You can’t do that with your Sun Card,” she said. “In a way this is actually more secure.”

Program participant and bioengineering junior Chelsey Poling said there were pros and cons to the program.

“It was awesome because I got a brand new phone,” she said.

Though, having one phone for dorm access and another as her personal cellphone was not very convenient, she said.

Participants had to use an application on their phone to gain access to the dorms. Poling said her Sun Card was more convenient.

“With a Sun Card you just whip it out and do it,” she said.

Ninety percent of the participants that took a survey said they wished they could use their phone at every door on campus, Ploughe said. Fifty-nine percent said it was just as convenient as a Sun Card but would rather use their phone so they don’t have to look for their card.

“The pilot was very well received,” Ploughe said.

Downtown campus resident Trey Lanthier, a journalism freshman, said a Sun Card is easy to forget in your dorm but people always have their phones on them.

“There are a lot of times where you lock yourself out and there’s no way you can get in,” Lanthier said.

Ploughe said the technology is at least two years away from implementation at ASU.

Reach the reporter at ryan.mccullough@asu.edu

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