<p>What are the deals Penn has with various companies that provide essential college-related and other not so essential and non-college-related things? I know schools have deals with computer companies on laptops, phone companies on phones/services, etc. etc. Anyone know about this stuff before I waste money unnecessarily? I do enough of that in my regular life, I don’t need to do it for college stuff. Thanks.</p>
<p>there are a bunch of computer deals, I'm not sure exactly what though (need a pennkey to check online)</p>
<p>Does anybody know when do we get our Pennkey and other such stuff?</p>
<p>i heard that its either mid may or early june...</p>
<p>when do we find out about rooms?</p>
<p>The discounted computers and such are provided through Penn's computer store, the Computer Connection. The academic discounts are great</p>
<p>I bought Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger for $69 (an improvement over the $125 Apple wants).</p>
<p>As for other discounts, Cingular gives you a discount for being a Penn student. You get 10% off your monthly bill, no activation fee, and 45% any phone price.</p>
<p>As for landline phone services...uh...what's a landline?</p>
<p>I'm already contracted under cingular. Do I still get that stuff? If I need a phone now (mine got stolen!) can I get one?</p>
<p>Yes, you can. Just go to a Cingular corporate store (corporate stores being the stores directly owned by Cingular, which means they look fancy and sell ONLY Cingular) and mention that you are a Penn student.</p>
<p>I don't have my ID or anything else yet. Does it still work?</p>
<p>You know, I don't ever recall showing them my PennCard...(though I'm not very good at recalling things).</p>
<p>I think having a Penn email address is good enough.</p>
<p>we dont have email yet</p>
<p>i have verizon right now... does cingular work really well @ penn?</p>
<p>Yes, it does. But so does Verizon.</p>
<p>If you had T-Mobile, it would be worth it to switch to Cingular. Otherwise, you're fine.</p>
<p>doesn't t-mobile use cingular's towers as well as its own?</p>
<p>i have t mobile. it sucks.</p>
<p>maybe ill get better reception down there... all 10 miles away.</p>
<p>StonedPandas:</p>
<p>In California, yes, T-Mobile and Cingular share the same towers (also, in NYC). These are sharing agreements put into place to give each carrier a national footprint. Since both companies were formed by mergers and acquisitions of local/regional carriers into national carriers, there were bound to be some inevitable holes. T-Mobile had no network in CA, and Cingular had no network in the NYC region.</p>
<p>However, in Philly, T-Mobile (formerly VoiceStream) and Cingular (formerly CellularONE and Comcast Metrophone before that) were both independent networks with their own independent networks.</p>
<p>For an odd mix historical, technical, and physics reasons, Cingular's network is vastly superior to T-Mobile's, and always will be. (this could only change if the FCC granted new wireless licenses at lower frequencies).</p>
<p>So in short, T-Mo and Cingular share the network in CA, but not here at Penn.</p>
<p>Another interesting point (well interesting to me :D) is that since Cingular bought AT&T Wireless, they have acquired their own national network. Because AT&T does have networks in CA and NYC, Cingular no longer needs to share networks.</p>
<p>Because the AT&T Wireless networks are widely regarded as superior to the T-Mobile networks in CA and NYC, Cingular will be moving its customers in CA and NYC to the AT&T Wireless network over the next couple of years.</p>
<p>Cingular sold the existing networks in NYC and CA back to T-Mobile. So T-Mobile owns them now, but they still suck.</p>
<p>I must point out that ALL american networks are absolute crap compared to the networks in Europe.</p>
<p>When did live video calls on cell phones start showing up here in the states? Has it even yet? Can you even send pictures between carriers yet?</p>
<p>Cingular literally got inter-carrier MMS sending yesterday.</p>
<p>We DO have 3G networks already up, but they are CDMA2000-based and I wouldn't touch CDMA2000. You'll pry my SIM card from my cold, dead hands :)</p>
<p>Anyhoo, we have UMTS/3GSM in a few American cities, and Cingular wants to deploy it to 14 more by the end of 2005...better get moving, Cingular.</p>
<p>Actually Cingular is jumping right past 3G UMTS and going to 3.5G HSPDA or whataever it's called.</p>
<p>So video calls will get here...someday.</p>
<hr>
<p>But overall, yes, US mobile networks are crap. Then again, you're far more likely to find a job in the US than in Europe. It's all a trade-off.</p>
<p>"But overall, yes, US mobile networks are crap. Then again, you're far more likely to find a job in the US than in Europe. It's all a trade-off."</p>
<p>JohnnyK - not true if you have an EU passport ;)</p>