<p>Any secrets? My D is a visiting student on the 12 college exchange and she can not call us from her room (AT&T provider) due to poor reception. It actually has been near impossible to speak with her elsewhere on campus too...any tricks of the trade?</p>
<p>No clue, but everyone I’ve met who has AT&T complains that the reception is incredibly awful. Verizon is apparently the provider of choice here. It may be worth seeing if Verizon has some cheap pre-paid cell phones that your daughter could use while on campus.</p>
<p>The Valley is a black hole of cell phone reception, but it’s particularly bad in the Quad. I had T-Mobile the whole time I was at Smith and had great reception everywhere except in my friend’s room in the Quad. I’m surprised she gets bad reception in other parts of campus though, as those were usually fine for me (except the library). </p>
<p>She should try calling you from an outside location definitely, something about the old buildings makes them signal killing machiens. Alternately, have her download Skype, or make calls from within Gmail (you can now use Google Voice to make phone calls to regular phones for free, just from inside your gmail account).</p>
<p>I second that esp the Quad although this year with an I-phone I was able to get decent reception in my D’s quad room although she doesn’t have one. We also Skype - we call her on her room phone and then she logs on. Also she can often get texts even when she can’t get calls.</p>
<p>I was going to ask the same question! We have Verizon and my D had to walk outside to call me this evening. She is also in the Quad, Jordan House.</p>
<p>I had T-Mobile and had horrible reception in Lawrence House (which luckily was not my house). I also had bad reception in some of the academic buildings.</p>
<p>If your D buys a phone card she’ll be able to call you on the room phone (unless you happen to be local) and you can always call it.</p>
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<p>The AT&T signal booster isn’t inexpensive but it is a solution.</p>
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<p>[AT&T</a> 3G MicroCell - Signal Booster - Wireless from AT&T](<a href=“http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/why/3gmicrocell/]AT&T”>http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/why/3gmicrocell/)</p>
<p>We thought about that as well. If anyone tries it would love to know how it works but it;s only good in the room.</p>
<p>We have Verizon which works fine with both our college kids; actually it’s cell phone use in our house that is problematic because we live in a kind of cell phone hole. Because of that, we use Skype and iChat with both kids; in fact, the other day we needed to have a family pow-wow about an issue and our son set up the three-way connection and it worked just fine.</p>
<p>Sure enough she lives on the quad! She got her room phone working so we can at least call on the land line… old school!</p>
<p>My daughter lives in the Quad. We have Alltel yet. She gets reception, but her battery is constantly low. I sent her a new battery. We’ll see how long that one lasts.</p>
<p>If a phone is constantly searching for a cell tower due to requiring updating, that can cause the battery to drain very quickly. Using Bluetooth is a big battery killer too.</p>
<p>The phone might need to be programed for the Northampton Verizon network. Have your daughter dial *228…at the prompt hit the #2 key to update. There might also be software updates available for the phone. Have your daughter take her phone to the Verizon store and they will download enhanced software, if available.</p>
<p>As for reception, not all phones are created equal. Some have much better internal antennas than others.</p>
<p>Thanks CrewDad. I did call Alltel. They told me that her phone is bouncing off several towers and constantly searching for the Verizon tower. And they told me the same thing about calling *228 and option 2. They said to do it when there is no R for roaming, and I don’t think she’s found a time when there’s no R. They told me the nearest Alltel store is in Michigan and never suggested the Verizon store. She’ll be home for fall break and we can take care of it then hopefully.</p>
<p>For the first two years, my daughter had had trouble with ATT in her room on Green Street, but she usually solved it by sitting/standing near the window. When we upgraded her phone (still a freebie), she got much better reception. </p>
<p>We were not about to switch because both my husband and I have iPhones, plus a really good family plan on ATT.</p>
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<p>Altell was acquired by Verizon. I’m not sure why the Alltel rep wasn’t more knowledgeable/helpful. Your daughter most certainly can go to a Verizon store for assistance. </p>
<p>Ignore the R… have her call *228. Use option one and two and see if it helps. It serves no purpose to wait until she’s home.
Also, depending on which phone she has, roaming might be turned on… Have your daughter check her phone settings. I would do a hard reset too. Take the battery out of the phone, wait 10 seconds to reinstall, restart phone.</p>
<p>In the future, I would call Verizon wireless for help. (800) 922-0204</p>
<p>Thanks! I’ll relay this information to her.</p>
<p>I thought we were the only people in the world that couldn’t get cell phones to work in our house.</p>