Cell phone service (yet again)

Colleges and Universities A-Z Northwestern University
1

<p>Sorry if this is getting redundant, but I can't find a good answer by searching past posts, since a lot of them conflict with each other.</p>

<p>What cell phone service has the best reception at Northwestern? I'm planning to live on South Campus, if that helps, but I'd like decent coverage all over. I use Cingular/AT&T right now but will probably switch because it seems unnecessarily expensive for what I'm getting.</p>

<p>Any current students that can offer their experience with this would be helpful.</p>

2

<p>I am not a current student but on my trip they all told me that Sprint was the only one that worked, and that was the service that they all had.</p>

3

<p>i used my phone during preview nu and it was fine. i have tmobile.</p>

4

<p>Sprint is most reliable INSIDE buildings.</p>

<p>Outside, you can use any service.</p>

5

<p>Just in the Daily Northwestern today...</p>

<p>"The city's Site Plan and Appearance Review Committee granted preliminary approval April 27 for T-Mobile to install 12 antennas on top of an apartment building at 1311 Chicago Ave."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/05/04/4278659f29e2e%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/05/04/4278659f29e2e&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

6

<p>that will be cool.. i have t-moblie now..and its the cheapest rate plans for more min..</p>

7

<p>is there any provider that doesnt charge for incoming calls? (i live in europe, here incoming is free so i dont like that they charge for it in the us)</p>

8

<p>nextel has free incoming calls, but i wouldnt recommend it.</p>

<p>i think almost every company has free calls between people who have the same company. tmobile and sprint does im sure.</p>

9

<p>Thanks guys!</p>

10

<p>Cingular is fine all over campus. Inside Norris and Tech, no one seems to be able to get reception, even with Sprint or expensive Verizon.</p>

11

<p>Go for Verizon because it has the best service across the country. Not to mention it has the most customers so you get a lot more value for the free calling within the network. Also there is a new feature that gives free text/picture messaging within the Verizon network for only $5.00. </p>

<p>Verizon might not have the coolest phones, but they definitely have the most reliable service. Whereas T-Mobile only has service in the big cities (don't ever leave Chicago!), and Cingular has terrible customer service and less coverage than Verizon.</p>

12

<p>haha. im impartial to t-mobile because i've used it for years now. i live in the chicago suburbs (40 mins from downtown) and it works perfectly fine. i go to school in an area i consider rural (there are cornfields across the street) .. and my phone has 4 bars right now while im sitting in my dorm room. </p>

<p>how much signal u get also depends on your phone... my old phone didnt get good signal.. now, i have a samsung 315 i think? one of those flippy phones and the signal's just great.</p>

13

<p>when i was at preview nu i asked some people and i heard that verizon was terrible on campus. in fact one of the guys who was giving tours of a dorm said he used to stand outside screaming on his phone and realized there were others doing the same and they formed a little verizon-sucks club. also i think there is a sprint tower on top of tech that helps a lot on north campus. but the overall consensus was that the best are sprint, tmobile, and cingular.</p>

14

<p>I've never had a cell phone in the US ... my cell phone provider here in France is letting me take the phone with me (it's a sony ericsson, i really like it) ... can I just show up to a company in the US and say that I already have a phone and just need the service? Everyone I've talked to got their phone and their service plan together so I'm not sure.</p>

15

<p>it depends. some phones are designed for only a certain carrier. did u get your phone from your current carrier? if so, u should ask them.</p>

16

<p>I got it from my provider in France (SFR). They said that I can take the SIM card out and get a new one from a provider in the US. I just need to know if companies in the US have a problem with this.</p>

17

<p>It depends what kind of network it is configured to work on. I'm pretty sure the only network it could work on is Cingular because they use GSM technology, which is standard around the world for the most part. Verizon uses CDMA, and I highly doubt your phone could work on this network. My point is that your phone can only work on one kind of network (probably the GSM), but you still have to change the SIM card to get it to work on that same network here since there are slight variations.</p>

18

<p>it has to be unsimlocked then u can use it with all gsm carriers worlwide.. cingular , t mobile too etc.. i know u can get just sim card with pay as u go dont know about real service plans..</p>

19

<p>ok ... yeah, i'm going to get it un-blocked tomorrow. Does anyone know if the pay-as-you-go deal in the US is worth it? Money-wise, I mean. Here it's pretty good, though I have a regular service plan.</p>

20

<p>virgin mobile has a decent offer i think (free incoming) on sprint network... the rest are expensive... pay as u go is not a big thing in the us like it is in france</p>