<p>I’m going to be coming to Brown this fall from California. I am currently on Verizon’s cell phone plan with a CA phone number. </p>
<p>Do current students suggest changing to a number within Providence’s local area code? Would this be less expensive in terms of making local calls or would this be unnecessary?</p>
<p><em>bump</em> </p>
<p>I’m coming from California too, but I have AT&T currently. I want to switch to Sprint for the awesome new Palm Pre they have. I’m just curious because I believe someone on this forum said AT&T gets the best coverage at Brown, I’m just curious as to how the Sprint coverage is.</p>
<p>Would it be a bad idea to switch to Sprint if i’m moving to Providence for the fall?</p>
<p>Most college students seem to stay on their family’s cell phone plans (since that’s usually much cheaper than having a stand-alone plan) so they keep the home area code. Since your college friends will have area codes from all over the country, and most cell phone plans make no distinction between local and long-distance calls (you are paying for generic “minutes” of usage), it doesn’t make much sense to get a local number in Providence. Just make sure you have a plan with enough minutes and preferably unlimited texting.</p>
<p>My daughter has a Sprint phone. She kept her regular number, with most carriers, long distance is included free, so it’s not an issue. For the first term, when she had an LG Fusic, she had a hard time getting and keeping a signal in her room in Perkins, but outside was no problem. At Christmas, I bought her a new phone, the Samsung Rant, and it seemed to work a lot better in her room. She still had problems with dropped or missed calls if she was in the hallways, but rarely in her room. </p>
<p>I think I saw somewhere (but can’t confirm, so I may be way off base) that the University has a contract with AT&T which is why they have the better service on campus. I’ve also heard that Verizon has the worst, with many dead spots on campus, but again, I can’t confirm, just repeating what I heard.</p>
<p>At the ADOCH weekend, my cell phone worked fine.</p>
<p>Better than it does at home, actually, but then again my house has absolutely terrible cell phone reception.</p>