If I were a cellular phone provider I would go even further.

1) Setup a calling center at Houston's Astrodome.
The folks who are being evacuated from the Superdome will be showing up soon.

2) Provide a phone for a nominal charge or even for free.
With this free phone provide free service for 1 month, and then provide an extended plan at a discount.

Of course during the initial month, there would have to put a hard limit on minutes used.

There will certainly be some loss due to people using a phone for only a month and then selling/discarding it without signing up for additional service, but I bet many of those folks who don't already have a cell phone would keep it, especially if the price point of the plan is low enough.

This is my first post to this thread (although I see others have included my voice in conversation by pasting some of my email responses to the thread). I am the project director of the Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon. I am thrilled that slashdot has taken an interest in our project. I will continue to respond to all of the emails that people send me directly. I'd also be happy to engage in a public conversation in slashdot on questions or comments that anyone would like. I'll hang back though and not insert my voice in this great discussion unless someone asks for it. Again thank you for your interest and thank you to whoever posted the original article, we were a somewhat unknown little project before Saturday.