<p>So as a parent with a soon to be freshman college student, I'm afraid my d is going to go over our cell phone minutes as she gets homesick and will most likely be on the phone a lot with her friends and boyfriend. </p>
<p>Has any parent here who already has a college student find their cell phone bill increase? Someone here recommended getting LOTS of minutes at least for the first year. Any thoughts or advise would be nice.</p>
<p>Also, who do you think REALLY has the best coverage: Verizon or Cingular?</p>
<p>we have verizon and have been lots of places (lots of camping, too) and usually have a great signal -- but it does depend on the location. You might have her wait until she gets there or ask the school.</p>
<p>if the school has Cricket, that seems too be a good plan. Unlimited everything for about $45 a month.</p>
<p>Had Cingular 5 years ago and was very dissatisfied,coverage was poor. It may be better now. Switched to Verizon and have had no problems. Verizon allows unlimited minutes if the person you are calling is also on Verizon. Most of my kids friends seem to be on Verizon, so that helps a lot. We did up the minutes when S1 went to college. Now if we could just keep S2's text messages to a reasonable number!</p>
<p>Check out plans with unlimited in-network calling. For a total of $10 a month, I get free calls to my mom's cell and access to a certain number of non-network minutes as part of a family plan. My mom and I are very close, and I shudder to think what our daily conversations would do to the phone bill without this!</p>
<p>Verizon seems to be the best plan for us, both financially and coverage wise. Because all Verison-to-Verizon calls are free, it seems that a lot of kids on my son's campus are on Verizon plans with their families and thus calls to each other are free too. Even though my three sons always seem to be on their phones, we've never gone over our minutes because most of their friends are on Verizon too. There's also a good package for text messaging.</p>
<p>We use Cingular... with unltd Cingular to Cingular minutes, plus free long distance (no roaming). Also switched phone numbers with my d because mine had accumulated a massive amount of rollover minutes. AND we installed skype on her computer and ours (and her grandparents).</p>
<p>We've used Nextel for years and have recently switched to Sprint. We are very happy with Sprint, and use the family plans where all calls to Sprint or Nextel numbers are free. The nights and weekends start at 7:00PM, too.</p>
<p>Sprint roams onto the Verizon and Alltel systems. Coverage has been excellent, even in rural areas.</p>
<p>Long distance is included as are any roaming fees.</p>
<p>Cingular hasn't been perfect, but it has worked well for our family. Currently it's me and three kids, so we have four lines sharing the minutes, and a big enough plan with free long distance, no roaming. When the oldest child headed to college, I also had worries about the minutes going through the roof, which they did (son went to the opposite, east coast). Cingular to Cingular and extended nights and weekends kept all in check, plus the college kid was pretty smart about his timing of calls (which was easy with most of his friends running 3 hours behind him due to time difference; girlfriend was also a Cingular subscriber).</p>
<p>Now text messaging and child 2, that's been another story.</p>
<p>My DS has applied to remote LACs and most usually have a web page devoted to recommended cell phone coverage. Verizon appears to have better coverage at the Northeast schools. I'd check out the college's first year admit sites.</p>
<p>The best cell provider is the one that gets the best service where you child is attending college. I will say...my kids have NEVER exceeded their voice minutes on their cell phones (never...and DS is a senior). HOWEVER...text messaging is another story. This is much more commonly used now than even when DS was a freshman. This is how the cell companies are making their money. There are some "plans" you can buy as add ons to cell coverage ($4.99 for 200, or 9.99 for more...don't remember)...but as an example...DD has the $4.99 text plan (which btw...SHE pays for...we're paying for the phone) and she had $50 worth of over charges for text messages only. She is on our family plan and her phone only costs $9.99 per month (Cingular family plan). Yes...we took the money out of HER account for this. So...when you choose your cell plan, consider what kind of text messaging your kid will be using. OH....and read your bills carefully. In the last year, we haven't gotten one bill from Cingular that was completely correct (but have heard the same story from Verizon users too).</p>
<p>We checked the service when we did college visits. At one school the service dropped to almost zero when inside buildings, but was fine outdoors. So we decided to wait for Accepted day or Orientation to decide. We also have a 4 phone family plan with Cingular and have been very happy with that. Her part is $20 a month for phone and 400 texts. She has never gone over due to fear of incurring my wrath, but we will probably up that for college, since that is her main mode of communication.</p>
<p>Since Southwest Bell merged with ATT, the Cingular service has improved significantly. We went from Verizon to Cingular earlier this year and it has been great. Plus, if you travel outside the US, Cingular technology works whereas Verizon's doesn't, a big plus for students planning to study abroad. Rollover minutes are good too.</p>
<p>Disclaimer: I am ambivilous about cell phones, getting my first a few months ago, so I am not sure how accurate the info in my post is at present.</p>
<p>Before my daughter goes off to college this fall, I will be talking with the Verizon people to see whether there are any adjustments we should make in the family cell plan to account for her increased use of her cell phone.</p>
<p>But in our case, Verizon is the only game in town because it has by far the best coverage on the campus where she is going. As it happens, it's the company our family uses anyway, but even if the rest of us used a different company, my daughter would need a Verizon phone.</p>
<p>One other money-saving option that may be worth considering: If your child's college allows it, it might make sense to save some money by using the cell phone exclusively and not having the land line in the dorm room turned on at all. My son did this (not deliberately; he just basically sort of forgot to ever get his room phone turned on), and it worked out just fine. He now lives off-campus with three other guys, and all of them use their cell phones exclusively. They never signed up to get the phone in their apartment turned on.</p>
<p>Make sure your kid understands the calling and texting plan. Text messaging charges can add up unbelievably fast. Our family has never run over on minutes but text messaging has been another story.</p>
<p>And we have found out with S2, it's not always your kids fault since thye are charged for ever text someone sends them. It seems the girls at his h.s. text constantly and he always getting more texts than he sends. But what 17 year old guy is gonna tell the girls to stop "calling", LOL.</p>
<p>The problem with adding minutes to an existing cell plan, at least with Verizon, is that you have to start a new contract. It's quite annoying that they do that. So we are just going to wait it out until September; this way we can change carriers too.</p>
<p>If your kid is going far away to school, he is likely to encounter people with many different cell plans. We may switch out of Verizon to a company that has rollover minutes, better non-peak hours, and allows you to have 5-favorite-numbers that you can call for free, no matter their plan.</p>
<p>And check your bills if you add minutes and change plans at all. Cingular changed one of our billing account numbers (no notification at all....said it was their "policy"). We pay online...and did so to the OLD account number. Well...guess what, that account no longer existed, and we got a late notice for the one that did. It took almost 2 hours on the phone to straighten that one out.</p>
<p>Re: text messaging...the feature CAN be turned off on a phone if the student can live without it. This is what will happen with DD if she goes over by $50 again...we'll just turn the feature off and she can see that she CAN exisit without it. One very annoying thing about Text messages is that you must read them...and when you do, you get charged for them. If either of my kids could simply delete them before reading and not get charged, it would not be a problem. You can do that with calls...why not with texts?</p>
<p>I haven't switched to tmobile yet- but it sounds very tempting</p>
<p>They have a faves plan that allows each number to specify their 5 numbers to call for the same fee- they can be landlines or cell phones on other plans.
You can also change these numbers once a month
For $20, the whole family has unlimited test messaging.
Consumer reports I think found that Tmobile had comparable coverage and service to Verizon
I currently have verizon, but I hate them.
coverage good- service not
I am also interested in GSM phones that can be used overseas Verizon has CDMA</p>
<p>With Sprint, you can opt for free incoming calls, and also for $5 per month add free calling to your home phone which is FANTASTIC if you are studying abroad.</p>