The FOI response from the University of Bristol is interesting. Thanks to idb for putting it in. You can find it
here.
Quote: 2) Why did the University introduce 0870xxxx:
The government passed a ruling that all student should be provided with a room, that contained a data port, and a telephone, once this ruling was passed, telephone providers decided that this was a good scheme, ACC were the telephone company responsible for the introduction of telephone/data service within Bristol University,
As time went on, ACC found it difficult to collect revenue for this service, and so finally went into liquidation, at this point Bristol University then found that it had an obligation to provide services, but the cost to do so as a higher education facility would have been prohibitive, and so the telephone consultants of the day, were asked to find an alternative method, and so the Dog N Bone service was introduced. This means that students no longer receive bills in arrears, which was one of the main criticisms from the student body about the previous operators.
The purpose of the 0870 numbers is to help cover the costs of providing the telephone service to the student community. At this point, each student has a telephone, that we do not charge rental for, free internal calls around the University. Plus the University maintains this service and is free to students, with very competitive rates for international calls. Plus this year the introduction of call plans, which will also make the student calls cheaper.
So it's the government that says all student accommodation must have a telephone.