Since Eastern can no longer depend on funds from campus long-distance calls, its funding methods for technology will begin to resemble those of other universities in the state.

Eastern used to receive a substantial portion of its funding for technology from long-distance phone calls because it would strike a deal with the long-distance provider to receive a percentage of the profits in exchange for the campus contract.

Those funds were then used to pay for technology on campus, such as maintenance and expansion of the server, Bill Witsman, director of Information Technology Services, has said. This sort of technology funding was not a practice of other state universities like Western Illinois University, Illinois State University and Southern Illinois University.

The funds derived from long distance bills began to plummet when the long- distance telephone industry was deregulated a couple years ago. Since then, faculty, students and staff have been using more calling cards and cell phones that provide cheaper service, thus cutting the use of the long-distance provider and Eastern’s percentage of the profits.

To fill the gap, the funds needed for technology must be pried from the already strained sources of tuition, student fees and state appropriated dollars.

However, Western, Illinois State and Southern have always generated technology funding from such sources.

And like Eastern, Western and Illinois State are beginning to see troubles in funding technology because of the state’s callback of funds this year and predictions for relatively low increases in higher education appropriations next year. Southern says it has yet to determine what the funding constraints impact will have on its technology budget.

Dr. James Bradford, director of Information Technology at Western, said Friday that although funding for technology is lacking because of the recent budget callbacks from the state, there is still enough money to maintain the campus network through tuition fees and state funding.

“It’s certainly adequate to run the current (system),” he said. “To provide the level of service we currently offer.”

Bradford also said there has been no significant problems with the server and the network is running without any “critical problems.”

However, the state budget cuts, brought on by a weak economy, are affecting future plans to provide additional labs on campus and faster Internet access, and Western is looking into outside sources like grants to pick up the slack.

“We’re going to need more (money) fairly soon,” he said.

Alongside with Western, Dave Williams, associate vice president for Information Technology at Illinois State, reiterated Friday that the budget cuts have caused a significant setback in updating technology on campus.

“We’re hurting,” he said. “We’re getting stretched thinner and thinner to do what we want to do.

“Technology being so critical, that is one department we have worked on for years. We work real hard at prioritizing,” he said. “I think our network is in pretty good shape.”

Because of funding problems two years ago, Southern created a new student fee to fund technology on its campus, Carol Hendry, budget director at Southern, said Friday.

Hendry said she is still unsure the impact this year’s state budget cuts will have for technology funding.

But Hendry said the fee helped considerably and it generated almost $1 million for the campus network; however, access to the Internet has been a constant complaint over past years.

Eastern’s server has been experiencing problems this semester because of the increase in online education and Internet use in residence halls, Witsman has said. The server has not been upgraded to keep up with the increased demand on campus as a result of the decrease in technology funding, he said.

Last week, the university was installing new routers on the campus network to help increase its capacity at a cost of $68,000. Witsman has said he expects the network to speed up as a result of the additional routers.