Friends often call each other to pick a place to rendezvous on campus. Shown meeting on the Centennial Mall (L to R) are Traci Salo of Bozeman, Corinne Lawson of Billings, Chris Frelich of Livingston, and Amy Pitman of Livingston. All are in their third year at MSU. That Ringing Sound is Getting Louder by Carol Flaherty Tinnitus and elbow-itis are increasing at an alarming rate at MSU. The symptoms are obvious to anyone walking across campus. First there is the frequent ringing in the ears. Fingers quickly extend to pocket or purse, and then an elbow bends with a quick jerk. The tip-off that the student is infected is that, for all appearances, he begins talking into the palm of his hand. Between cell phones and a new wireless network on campus, technology is moving from the predictable comp-uter labs and library out onto the mall and under the trees. There are no statistics to say how many of MSU's 11,000-plus students have cell phones. A guess can be made while walking across campus. Count the number of people and compare that to the number of cell phones in use. Perhaps one-in-10 students is walking with a hand glued somewhere between jaw and jugular. Students admit to calling home, which was probably the motive expressed if they had to lobby for one of the silvery flip-up phones. But with 12,000 students on campus, a lot of cell-phoning is being done student to student. "That's how we got together," said Amy Pitman, a third-year student from Livingston sitting with friends and roommates on the mall recently. "Every one of us has one," she said. Being found by a friend may be more fun sometimes than others. "It's kinda a mixed blessing," said Chris Frelich of Livingston, one of Pitman's friends on the mall. "Last night I got woke up by one of my friends at one in the morning." But Frelich also has had to use his cell phone in an emergency, another of the winning arguments for acquiring the little gems. Wireless use on campus is still in its infancy, but expanding this semester. About 300 students had registered "IP" addresses as of September 1, allowing them access to the system. But more are registering every day. Craig Borrenpohl, a junior in the bioresource option of civil engineering, says he went wireless last spring when the system was still being tested. "I do like it. A lot of teachers are putting notes online, and I can access them anytime," said Borrenpohl. "Before wireless I had to use the computer labs. When it was busy for you, it was busy for everyone else, and hard to get to a computer. As soon as I bought this computer I signed up for wireless." The wireless system is in several areas of Renne Library, the atrium of the Engineering and Physical Sciences building, throughout most of the first floor of the Strand Union Building, and out on the mall in front of the library. The plan is to extend the wireless network as funding permits. Borrenpohl also uses a cell phone, and also calls it a mixed blessing. "The worst thing is that you don't have to plan anymore," Borrenpohl says. "You say, 'Okay. I'll call you later.' Everything is spur of the moment. You have to be ready for anything. You may have four things going, and the first person to call you back is what you do."