BEST CELL PLAN, anyone?

<p>When I purchased a family cell phone plan shortly before my son left for college, I wanted to obtain a phone number for him that was local to the city where his college is located. All the phone companies except Sprint told me they had regions. Their plans allowed multiple phone numbers local to anywhere within the region where the main number for the family plan was located. However, they could not issue phone numbers local to areas outside the region. Sprint, however, could issue phone numbers local to anywhere in the country if those phones were on a family plan.</p>

<p>This is likely not a concern for most folks, but I thought I'd post in case it was a consideration for some.</p>

<p>Well...our son has a Cingular number which is local to where he goes to college. So other plans do that also. I will say it was a hassle...AND (as noted) he cannot be included on our family plan because of this. However, at the time (four years almost ago) it was important so that professors could call him and have a local number. Now it wouldn't matter...everyone (including the professors) uses cell phones and from all over the place. And at that time, almost everyone had regional plans. Now most of the plans are national plans...thank goodness.</p>

<p>Is there a summary here that would be generalizeable? I don't know.</p>

<ol>
<li> Carrier: Cingular vs. Verizon vs t-mobile etc etc probably depends on where the kid will be at school.</li>
<li> National plan all the way, unless you/your kid/your kids' friends/family/profs are all in one region's area codes.</li>
<li> Free cell-to-cell or in-network plans can really help.</li>
<li> Family plans with no roaming and rollover can help.</li>
<li> Skype can be a HUGE money-saver, using it for free when near your laptop, so don't need to use cell minutes.</li>
<li> Not using a landline phone in the dorm is very feasible (whether there are any $$ savings by not having one may vary by the college; hasn't been a factor in my S's case - but I have no clue what his land line # is/was at any of the colleges he's been at).</li>
<li> (my contribution or at least I didn't see it above) Make the kid responsible for cost of overages of minutes/text messages beyond the plan you think reasonable. This will nip silly usage in the bud. Even if you pay the kid's allowance, they will have to trade-off how important constant texting/talking really is. Set the budget you will pay. Kid deals with the rest.</li>
</ol>

<p>re: the dorm room landline... </p>

<p>We had ldgirl hook up a phone with an answering machine to her dorm landline. We had two settings for that line available to us...allow calls coming in and going out, or just allow calls coming in. We opted for the latter option. We usually communicate by cell phone; but it's nice to know if there is an emergency and can't get her on the cell, I can get a roommate or suitemate to pick up her landline or at least leave a message on a machine that has a blinking light. (She forgets to pick up her cell phone messages.) And there is no danger of someone grabbing her landline phone and calling Siberia since it won't make outgoing calls.</p>

<p>My kids (college senior and freshman) had no choice about whether to get landline service turned off or not - it just was and the price is included in the room and board fee. We bought son a very inexpensive landline phone in case he lost or misplaced his cell. It's not a portable either so the receiver can always be found! My daughters college supplies the phones and they stay there. </p>

<p>For the record, we're a Verizon family too. We have three phones (husband and I share) and have NEVER gone over our minute limit. Most of kids friends are verizon. For whatever reason, my kids don't text message much at all. I think they communicate with old HS friends via facebook.</p>

<p>Two colleges we saw this year have discontinued dorm room land lines. They said the students were not using them and it was costing the college a lot of money for the contracts. Cell phones are the only way on those campuses.</p>

<p>My dad works for a company that builds and leases cell phone towers to various providers. He says that in the markets where they exist, T-Mobile is the best carrier. After that Cingular (now ATT) really does have "more bars in more places" (what a disappointment when I found out they were talking about cell phone coverage...). Whether either of those match up with the best plans is a highly variable situation, but those are the facts about the networks.</p>