Anyone on the Dartmouth College campus who picks up a phone and makes a long-distance call anywhere within the United States will find that the call is on the house. On July 1, the school stopped charging for all long-distance calls.

The arithmetic that went into the decision was simple, said Bob Johnson, the director of network services at Dartmouth. Calls that cost 25 cents per minute in 1995 now cost less than 2 cents. So Dartmouth was paying $250,000 a year to bill individual phone lines at the school for long-distance calls. But the total annual long-distance bill had dropped to $150,000.

"It became apparent that the billing function was costing us much more than we were getting back," said Mr. Johnson. "So it was a pretty easy decision." The heavy use of e-mail at Dartmouth made the decision even easier, he said.

"We're just treating phone calls like electricity or any other utility," Mr. Johnson said.

Similarly, the college has stopped billing students for Internet access and cable television hookups.

Last year the college ran a long-distance test with a sorority house. Call volume spiked at first, then leveled off. Mr. Johnson said most calls were made to boyfriends and parents, with a minimum of marathon phone sessions.

Call volume has increased campuswide since July 1, but Mr. Johnson expects it to settle down. "I don't know of any other campuses doing this," he said.

Telecommunications administrators from other campuses have asked Mr. Johnson about the decision. "I've gotten calls from a number of colleges, because this really appeals to the financial side of the house," he said.