The Telephone Department of the University of Natal runs as a self supporting department and charges for all telephone services. The mandate is to charge at levels equivalent to or less than the equivalent Telkom rates and to remain entirely self sufficient. All costs of running the department including the maintenance and replacement of equipment are covered from these charges and the department thus receives no budget from the University.

All extension costs are accumulated and billed to the extension holder's department once a month. The account is sent directly to the Finance Division where the total amount is debited directly from the departmental cost centre. A detailed statement comprising the user directory, rental costs and extension call summary costs is sent to the department every month. An exception report is included that shows call details for calls that exceed certain limits. Fully detailed call reports are available on request, subject to a page charge.

The following sections give the current charges for the most common services along with some comparative figures from previous years and from Telkom. For special service not listed below, please contact one of the switchboard supervisors: 

• Laverne de Bruin(8098) for all Durban campuses;
• Louise Suttie(5597) for the Pietermaritzburg campus.

Rental (see Table of costs )

Every extension attracts a line charge that covers the cost of the cabling and exchange equipment plus a rental for the handset. The line charge rate is currently less than both Telkom's residential and business rates.

The tables show both types of charges, the monthly bill being the sum of a line charge plus a handset charge.

Call Charges

All outgoing calls from the University network are routed through Telkom or one of the cellular networks who charge the University for the call. The Telephone Department's billing system calculates the cost of the call and passes the cost on to the user without mark up. Potential call charges are listed under the billing section.

Voice Mail

The Voice Mail system is an optional system that users can rent. The Voice Mail message box is usually associated with an extension but this is not an absolute requirement and people without telephones may still rent a Voice Mail message box. This is useful in situations where there are several people associated with a single extension. The Voice Mail system offers an extremely broad range of features and can be extensively customised. Usually however, most people find the default set of features adequate. If however you have some special needs which you think may be solved by some form of messaging system, you are encouraged to contact the telephone department.

Moves, Adds and Changes (see Table of Costs)

All installations of new services are charged at a fixed rate, irrespective of the cost of the installation. Similarly, moves and changes to existing services are charged for. The rate is set to track the equivalent Telkom rate in most cases.