<p>Those of you with cell phones....do you have a phone number based in your home town or a local phone number based inthe town in which you attend school? I am just wondering....I had numbers (had a year of verizon and a year of sprint) based in my school's city cuz I thought it would be better for the locals...but nowadays, most have cells which include long distance so i am thinking when i get my new phone i may get a number based in my home city cuz they have better deals....lol</p>
<p>Just get a number that is local to your hometown. Most people on campus have cell phones already and have the free long distance thingy. At least if you have the number from back home your parents can call you and it will be local.</p>
<p>My D did it the other way around. Most of her calls are going to be local and having a local number makes it easier for everyone else to call her.</p>
<p>She has free weekends and evenings and can call us free. Or we can call her, no big deal.</p>
<p>There was a bit of a squawk when the cell phone bill was assigned to the stack of things that she's responsible for paying.</p>
<p>I'm still in high school but most of my friends in college have nationwide/free roaming plans. I just resigned a plan for nationwide with unlimited roaming, unlimited phone to phone within the network(which all family members are on and some friends too), and unlimited nights and weekends. I plan on using the same plan in college unless there is some major lack of coverage.</p>
<p>I have a number local to my school. There are various phones scattered around campus that people use to call me (rather than wasting their minutes), and none of the phones have long distance. Plus, on my cell plan distinguishes between local and nationwide minutes and I get a lot more of local time.</p>
<p>The more important thing is to get a cell phone company that works in your college's location. My daughter has friends at college who have a terrible time because their cellphone company doesn't have enough local towers, whereas her calls go through every time on Verizon. According to Consumer Reports annual ratings of cellphones, Verizon has the fewest connection problems in pretty much every region of the country.</p>
<p>We were 909 area code-the area code split and we now live in 951. Somehow son's area code stayed 909 we didn't ask and it happened before he left for school.It is very convenient for him since his school is in 909. Not a big deal but it is really convenient. Just got our bill. he has calls to Newport Beach CA, and someplace in MN. I guess he gets along just fine with friends who brought cell plans from home.</p>
<p>We did check how service was at schools when we were visiting to avoid problems.</p>
<p>long distance? i though long distance went extinct. all the people with cell phones around here can call anybody in the u.s. just as if it was a local call.</p>
<p>probably get a home number cuz your dorm will have a local number. it doesn't matter much anyways cuz everyone's cell phones has free long distance nowadays. thought a home number on your cell phone will allow your family to call you from THEIR home without having long distance charges if their house phone doesn't have free long distance.</p>
<p>But what about on-campus phones calling your cell number? Having a local number means you can be reached by everyone you would meet at school.</p>
<p>The only person on campus I've meet that had a dorm phone was my RA because the school requires the RAs have on campus phones</p>
<p>Just be careful what kind of phone you select. My daughter gets terrible reception at Evergreen State College. No cell towers on campus, it's away from downtown Olympia, and those tall evergreen trees really inhibit reception. To top it off, her room is below ground level in an apartment-style situation. Her next phone will have analog as well as digital.</p>
<p>Definately keep your home phone number (get one of those free family members plans) its not necessary @ all to change your number to the local area and is more confusing.</p>
<p>home phone. you can use your on campus phone to call other people on campus, plus pretty much everyone has a cell phoen, and most of them have free long distance, so it doesn't matter what number you have. plus with ah ome phone number your parents can call you for free. my dad calls me and leaves me voice mails saying "i'm just calling because i can!"</p>
<p>Everyone at my school kept their home phone numbers. We really don't make many calls on the dorm phones anyway, it's easier to get a hold of people through their cells and we all have plenty of minutes.</p>
<p>I actually DON'T want my parents to call me...heh.</p>
<p>Well everyone with Verizon arrived on campus and found out that while Verizon has amazing reception everywhere local to Stanford (Palo Alto, Menlo Park, San Jose, etc) it has not a single tower on campus. So all of us were forced to switch to AT&T (or kept Cingular if you were willing to wait for January to get good reception), and nearly everyone who did so got a local number. Which I like, cuz I'm local, but it's not necessary.</p>