Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

In keeping with the spirit of the E-Berkeley Initiative, CNS is working towards a paperless environment. Each department, if they find it necessary, can still print out and view their statements in hardcopy format by accessing our website. Also, we offer a variety of billing formats for you to choose from, including downloadable detail and summaries. CNS usually keeps 13 months of CNS statements online. Please copy older months to your computers, or else print them out to ensure your department's CNS bill archive is complete.

This is a 5-digit code which can be used on any campus telephone or fax machine (without the tightest restriction) that allows the user to make long-distance calls, and have those calls charged back to the department which holds the authorization code. This is a convenience for a professor or staff member who needs to use a campus phone or fax in a different building to do the same work, or to separate phone calls from fax calls, etc. Please keep in mind that these codes have been used fraudulently in the past, especially after a department has not disconnected them when an employee has left their department. Be sure and consult your Voice Services Review Menu (a handy list of all services for your department) for any outstanding codes you don't recognize or that are old. CNS is not responsible for authorization code abuse; please cancel all codes you know you will not be using.

Most likely, this is a Key System number, and the reason it appears on your bill is that your department is paying maintenance fees on the key system phones. If you look at your "Detail Analysis", you will see that these charges range from $4 to $5.59 per phone. A Key System is a "smart" office phone system, which usually includes a "brain box" located in your building's telco closet. Please call 642-8080 for more explanation on Key System phone features.

If your cellphone service is not Verizon Wireless Government Package ($15/month), your usage and monthly service is manually billed out, and a paper backup of the call detail is sent to you (it's not on your CNS statement). This appears as a "one-time" charge, but really will continue every month as long as you have the service. Please call 642-5639 if you did not receive paper backup for your Cellular One service. Also, off-campus phone lines (called 1MB or Main Business lines) appear as one-time charges, but are really on-going charges. This is true of data circuits as well. This is because PacBell bills out data circuits and off-campus lines once a month and in order to keep the recurring costs together with the usage, we allow a program to automatically deposit these charges in one column, for simplicity, the "one-time" charge column.

A data circuit is a point-to-point line used for alarms, computer modems, credit card machines, or other "data-only" uses. These circuits appear on your statement with a 232 to 237 "area code" and there is a "one-time" charge. Actually, the one-time charge is a monthly recurring charge for that circuit (see previous question as to why this happens). An alarm circuit is a line which goes from your building to the basement of Sproul Hall (the Police Department). These are sometimes very old circuits, and are used for elevator or building alarms. A modem circuit can be an ISDN line going from your building to the basement of Evans. Each data circuit has a "Circuit ID" and location; if you want to know more information about a particular circuit you are being charged for, please call 642-4625.