<p>Florida State asks that each student have a local (area code 850) phone number for each student. Our solution to this has been to migrate our daughters' cell phone numbers to Tallahassee.</p>
<p>We use Nextel (Sprint/Nextel) for our family 'fleet' of cell phones. With Nextel, you have to transfer from Nextel Communications (home Nextel network where we live) to Nextel Partners (home Nextel network in Tallahassee) to gain the desired area code. There's no charge for this and Nextel Communications says they are buying Nextel Partners anyway, so all will be one company shortly.</p>
<p>For us, Nextel has very good coverage in and around Tallahassee and the roads we travel to get there (including some back roads). We are very happy with the service in general - especially the Direct Connect feature. Even suggesting a new cellular service nearly caused a female revolt in the family...</p>
<p>I am attracted to Verizon, however, because they have some family plans that beat Nextel's, at lower cost. However, is Verizon or another network workable as far as coverage in the hills of Tallahassee and beyond? </p>
<p>Coverage is more important than cost for us.</p>
<p>Anyone have thoughts or ideas?</p>
<p>We had no problem using Cingular in the Tallahassee area during orientation.</p>
<p>How about coverage on the roads to Tallahassee?</p>
<p>We did not experience any difficulty on the ride to Tallahassee. You should check the coverage maps for Cingular and Verizon Wireless to see if the areas you need are covered.</p>
<p>Well, this is the reason I ask. The maps frequently are not accurate.</p>
<p>I went ahead and brought a Sprint phone up to Tallahassee as a test against Nextel.</p>
<p>The coverage was generally quite good, better in many spots than Verizon (which we also could reference) but neither were as good as Nextel.</p>
<p>All had fine coverage in and around the University. The weak spots were on the highways to and from Tallahassee.</p>
<p>We're sticking with Nextel for now.</p>
<p>i have sprint, and i have absolutely no reception in my dorm, its horrible. My roommate has cingular, we might switch :P</p>
<p>Before you jump, you might try a number of cellular services to be sure. My daughters have fine coverage with Nextel on campus.</p>
<p>My son has an LG phone with Sprint service and so do I. The coverage on the drive from Central Florida to Tallahassee and back was just fine...only a couple of very small pockets of no service, about 1 minute in duration. In his dorm (Kellum) he gets full coverage, even in the elevator. Question: Didn't Nextel and Sprint merge?</p>
<p>Yes - Sprint bought Nextel and the company is now known (for now anyway) as Sprint/Nextel.</p>
<p>Sprint uses a different network than Nextel; the two are not compatible. I've heard that Motorola is developing a dual-mode phone to utilize both networks, but this is only rumor. Many Sprint units are already analog/digital. To add iDEN (what Nextel uses) it'd be a three-mode phone which has to be an engineer's nightmare.</p>