We currently have AT&T but want to switch to either T-mobile or Verizon. Do those work in ithaca? Thanks.
Son’s Verizon has worked well for past two years. Clear conversations as he walks across campus.
Verizon worked fine for my D for all 4 years on campus
Considering the CEO of Verizon is a Cornell alum, it’s a good bet Verizon has the best coverage:)
I have ATT. I am not sure if you are switching for cost purpose. I recently called ATT to get better pricing. I was able to get a family plan with 20MB data, unlimited call and text for around $120. I like ATT because it works well overseas.
Well our last AT&T bill for 4 of us was about $500…so yeah, we’re switching for cost reasons. It’s out of control.
@spemmar1 I did not know that!
Why don’t you call AT&T to ask them to give you a better rate. They did after I threatened to leave. My bill used to be $240/mon.
Too late lol. Maybe next time.
When I was on campus last fall, only ATT seemed to work. No one else had coverage especially as you go up the hill - which I thought was weird since going up, there will be less obstruction. It is not that high. My phone was requested for communications so many times, I was getting late for meetings.
@Renomamma WHAT? $500 for 4 phones with ATT? We pay roughly $275/month for 4 and that includes 3 iphone installments. My DH is having a fit, so we are all switching to Google Fi.
Some of that $500 was due to overcharges when kids had no WiFi and some was for a plan for my daughter while in Israel but it did not work…and some for an extra line we were told we wouldn’t have to pay for (long story). So, we just switched to Tmobile and since DD is hardly on North campus any more, it’s working fine. No contract, so we could switch any time.
Our usual phone bill was in the 300s.
I’m not going to say what I think of salespeople.
We used to have Tmobile, and it didn’t work around Cornell. Maybe things have improved since D1 was in school.
@Renomamma I am a former employee of AT&T, but we use Verizon Wireless. It seems to have the best coverage everywhere. And, we did get perfect service with our phones the three days were at Cornell this year. Our Verizon bill for four iPhones with 25 GB of shared data is usually $283/mo. With WiFi available so many places, we have never gone over the 25 GB. Verizon also has some new international phone/text services that seem quite flexible.
Cornell offers a discount for students with AT&T plans; I believe it’s somewhere around 15%.
Just a heads up if any of you are still paying full price for your phone plans!
@MOMANDBOYSTWO --OK, what are you doing using 25 GB of data!!
My son barely uses the cell phone data as Cornell’s WiFi provides excellent coverage. He did manage to exceed the 100GB/month usage on campus but the recent increase to 150GB/month has saved him. His greatest data use is during the trips back and forth to campus.
@CT1417 Good to know that Cornell has excellent Wifi for the kids.
I wondered that myself about the 25GB! My husband and I are definitely NOT the problem! But, one of my sons is a naval officer who has had to move at least six times and travel a lot in the past year since he graduated from college. He is now on a ship in Hawaii that doesn’t not have Wifi onboard, at least not for personal use. In fact, I don’t think he’s allowed to use his cell at all at work (for security reasons, I think), so he often uses it when he is out and about. (He does now have an apartment in Waikiki with Wifi, but he is on the ship far more days and overnights than he is at home.) In transit, I think he often had to use his cell phone more than his laptop for email, etc.
Anyway — I NICELY kept him on our family cell plan, because it seemed cheaper for HIM than setting up his own Verizon plan, and the Navy was not offering him a phone. (That makes the taxpayers happy, right?) I told him this year’s cell service it was his birthday present. (My husband doesn’t know, or he would already have kicked my son off the cell plan - now that he is an adult and all…)
I have heard that Facebook can be a huge data suck, because of pictures, and I know he is very social. (I don’t do Facebook yet…) Hopefully he’s not trying to watch entire movies on his phone! In the past two years, I think I have raised our family plan from like 2GB to 3GB to 5GB to 8GB to 10GB to 15GB to 20GB and finally to 25GB this spring. The data usage would always go up when he was traveling or moving, and we would all get warning texts that we were running out of data. Each time I talk with Verizon, they seem to have a different data/family plan deal…
Has this increase in usage happened to anyone else with four cell phone users in a family?
Your question has prompted me to look at our recent data usage to see if I can lower it back down to get a cheaper price. Although, from friends and people on this post, our $283/mo price for four iPhones seems almost the norm?
@MOMANDBOYSTWO – you can view data usage by line to determine if the use is in fact due to your naval office son. That is one scenario I had not considered but now understand. Given your data use, I would say your bill is in line.
I assume you know this, but if any of your phones are ‘off contract’, Verizon will reduce the monthly line charge from $40 to $20. I have been shopping for a new phone for one son today, and have concluded that the most cost-effective phone plan can vary with the deal being offered at purchase of new phone. Son is looking at an LG and the ‘two year contract’ purchase price of phone has varied from $1 to $249, depending on the store. But there is not much you can do to lower the Verizon monthly charges. Good luck!
@CT1417 I did know we could check data usage line by line, but I did NOT know about the reduced $20 charge when a phone is off contract with Verizon. What does that mean - off contract? We are paying $40 for each of our 4 phones. Are you saying that once we reach the 2-yr commitment after buying a new phone we can get a lower monthly rate? Or something different? Our phones are all about 2 yrs old or a little older at this point, so you have me very curious! Thanks for your advice!
@MOMANDBOYSTWO — sent you a message in case others are tired of reading about this on the Cornell thread!
D2 used 10GB to watch streaming cute puppy dogs. I asked why she was not using the campus wifi. She said, “Oh, it could be spotty and I forgot to turn it on sometimes.”
When D1 was studying abroad in Australia, she (or I) got a $600 bill for her internet usage. I asked her what she was doing. She said nothing other than watching few movies online (streaming). I had to call the internet provider to take $50 from me or try to get paid from a poor starving student. They took my $50.