<p>For you current students at Williams...</p>
<p>I was wondering which cell phone carrier provided the best coverage.</p>
<p>Verizon works perfectly.</p>
<p>does anyone know if at&t works now that it has merged with cingular? gah, i reeeally don't want to switch providers.</p>
<p>I heard it sucks now. A lot of people I know switched to Verizon.</p>
<p>Verizon is fabulous. I think there are other carriers that work, but I'd go with Verizon.</p>
<p>ewww no me gusta verizon. What a monopoly they have here in my city. I hope ATT and Cingular works...</p>
<p>sprint works fine in williamstown as well</p>
<p>Verizon user here, it seems to work just fine in Williamstown. However, because it's rural/ringed by mountains, and because of differences in construction in various dorms, W-town is challenging for cell phones. In general, service seems good, but it does depend on where you are. Greylock Quad, for example, seems to have poor reception--whether due to geography or construction, I don't know. But it's much better overall now in 2005 than it was in 2003.</p>
<p>I hope Sprint's signal is decent. Down here in Georgia, I have a lot of problems with it.</p>
<p>Does anyone know how well T-Mobile works up there?</p>
<p>If you check T-mobile's webpage about cellular coverage out in Williamstown it will say that there is none =/. However I'm not sure about Cingular. </p>
<p>I've heard from a student that Cingular works there, however I've also heard a contrary account to that from a visiting 09er who brought a Cingular cell up. If you check Cingular's website, it's fuzzy on whether or not it covers Williams (the coverage maps it provides are horrendous). Further confounding the issue is that if you visit 3rd party sites ie Amazon or wirefly.com they will not sell you a Cingular cell phone for the Williamstown area. </p>
<p>Currently I postulate that Cingular has only partial coverage of Williams College. Cingular cells compatable with analog and/or tdma capabilities (quad band phones?) work at Williams, but not phones purely using Cingulars mainstream GSM technology. </p>
<p>Apparently there is a cell tower at Williams that is leased to both Verizon and Sprint which uses TDMA technology and possibly analog...whether or not Cingular also uses that cell tower is a mystery, but if it did that would explain why some Cingular cell phones work on campus while others don't- only quadband cingular phones + analog phones work.</p>
<p>cookiemonster makes a good point, which I forgot about...in any rural area such as Williamstown, you're better off if your phone can handle analog, because that's what the local service might be. Phones that are digital-only may not get good reception in such regions. There was a Wall Street Journal article about this last year.</p>
<p>Williamstown has a digital cell, although the surrounding area has a number of analog ones, so a tri-mode phone would be best. As for carriers, I believe Verizon and Sprint are the only ones that work out here (I don't know anyone with Cingular/AT&T). I have Verizon, and it gets full reception in Williamstown and decent coverage in the surrounding area. I have friends with Sprint and they say that the coverage in Williamstown is good, but outside the town it's not so great. My recommendation would be Verizon.</p>
<p>crap i already signed up 2 years contract with cingular</p>
<p>I could be wrong about Cingular, but as far as I know it doesn't work. I know for a fact that Nextel and T-Mobile don't work, as people from back home who have come to visit haven't gotten reception out here (although now that Nextel is merging with Sprint, it will work here eventually).</p>
<p>Son uses Verizon, gets good reception. Friend who also goes there uses Cingular, digital and is now getting reception. Used to only be analog, Cingular recently updated is my understanding.</p>
<p>yeah,
I have cingular, and it works fine.</p>
<p>I second (third? fourth?) the Verizon love. Works great up here, except in certain places in some dorms and other buildings where nothing works.</p>
<p>Damn Cingular and damn that 1-year service contract I just signed! ;)</p>