<p>My husband, myself and junior in college son are the last three people on the planet without cell phones. Our house is in a dead zone which is probably why we are the last hold outs. We live in Vermont so coverage is spotty wherever we are and S goes to school in equally spotty area. </p>
<p>When son lived in the dorm we could get in touch with him via the dorm phone but now that he is living off campus we have no way to reach him in an emergency since everyone else has their own cell phones so no need for them all to share a land line.</p>
<p>If son needs to call us he will end up borrowing someone’s phone. We’d like to provide him with a cell phone (pay for it) so he doesn’t come off as such a scrounger but are totally confused by the options. S has a tracphone which he could reativate so we could just buy him the $99 card for one year coverage plus additional minutes but he seems to think it was an expensive way to go because of the roaming charges. If he had a cell phone he would be using it to call others besides us of course - girlfriend in particular. Most of his friends seem to be on family plans (not paying anything themselves) and generally making use of free nights and weekends which is when son borrows their phone. </p>
<p>Then on the other extreme we own our own business so we looked at the iphone as something that might be useful for husband to have (I assume this is similar to other cell phone based data transmission - blackberry? - but I don’t really know). What was intriguing was that the iphone worked either via cell transmission or wifi depending on what is available. Seemed that would give us more possibilities of where we would actually be able to get the phone to work plus all the other features would be really cool and extremely useful. I’m not really thinking of an iphone for S and not even sure we want to make that leap for H either. </p>
<p>I’m also totally confused about what networks cover what areas. Mainly because son was using his tracphone when he had a job away from home the summer before last in another area of Vermont. He could use his phone if he walked up the hill behind the house where he was staying but because he was paying roaming charges for every call he tried to switch to another pay as you go phone - sprint, I think - but found that one wouldn’t work where the tracphone did and returned it. The apple store person explained that AT&T and one other carrier (I don’t remember which one) use a different type of signal or a different type of phone or something than all the others and I don’t know what the implications of that are or why one phone will work where another won’t.</p>
<p>So, that’s my story. I’m trying to figure out what plan might make the most sense for us. Is it time to make the commitment to an actual 2 year family contract, is pay as you go still the right choice, and what are the hidden costs of any plan for the type of area we are in. I would like to know up front what I’d be paying and not be commiting to something with extra costs that I wasn’t anticipating.</p>
<p>So, that’s my story. Any help from any of you who understand the ins and out of all this would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>The family plans make a lot of sense. Choose the carrier first and then see which phones they offer. I just shopped for plans and, since most had stores within a short distance from my house, I visited Verizon, AT&T and Mobile One and had the sales people present a plan to me based on what I needed.I ended up sticking with Verizon because my parents live in a rural area and Verizon’s coverage is better there. Let the companies know you are shopping around and always ask them to waive activation fees. This site has some good info. </p>
<p>zip100, we don’t have Nextel, or ATT’s push to talk, but we have friends who live in a very rural section of our county who do. They have very poor coverage, but love the “walky’talky” aspect of their Nextel phones. They can “push to talk” and talk to each other even when there is NO SERVICE. It used to be just regional coverage, but I believe now there is national coverage. I am sure others will post. I know Netel, which is now part of Sprint, still has millions of folks using this. The ATT Push to Talk has fewer on this, but I am with ATT and I believe you can still get a “Push to Talk” plan. The air time for this aspect is FREE.</p>
<p>There are probably coverage maps of your area on the carriers’ web sites that you can search by your zip code. This might allow you to compare and see which one would have the best coverage.</p>
<p>I would find out what network his gf has. If you think he is going to be making a lot of calls to her it makes sense if they are both on the same network to avoid usage charges.<br>
I would not start out with the iphone. Get a simple phone without a lot of features and without data/email. The people I know with iphones still have coverage issues so don’t believe everything about the wifi versus cel signal.
We have ATT without push to talk/walky talky feature. Have the kids on a family plan so each additional phone is 9.99 extra per month. If you dont’ want a two year plan, get an inexpensive phone and buy the phone rather than letting them "give you " a phone in exchange for a two year contract.</p>
<p>We got a family plan and checked coverage maps. We have t-mobile which works in our Vermont cabin if you stand on the right part of the deck. (Works fine down in the valley.) It also works fine in Pittsburgh. Doesn’t seem to work very well in most of Peterborough NH. We were also looking for one that would work in Europe since dh is often at conferences. That narrowed down the choices a lot! Anyway, I’d ask around what works best in your area and your son’s area. All the family plans had similar prices when we were looking (last summer). Family plans allow unlimited talking within the family.</p>
<p>Find out from friends, neighbors, co-workers who has the best coverage. If ATT/cingular comes up, we have been thrilled with the rollover minutes, it really works well for us and they are great about handling credits for fringe roaming, which happens when you spend a great deal of time near the border and your phone thinks it has left the country!</p>
<p>Assuming you all need cell phones then do the family plan. With several of the carriers calls from one cell phone to another under the same carrier are free so it’s very helpful if the GF was on the same carrier (not the same plan).</p>
<p>All of the carriers are on different networks. AT&T and T-Mobile are both ‘GSM’ type networks which is compatible with Europe’s, but here one won’t work on the other’s network unless the phone is ‘unlocked’. One advantage of a GSM phone is that it’ll simply work while in Europe if any of you plan to go there. The per minute charges are fairly high (.99 per minute) but it’ll work otherwise.</p>
<p>Verizon and Sprint are on a different type of network and isn’t compatible with the European GSM type of network unless you get one of their phones that supports both types of networks (most of their phones don’t).</p>
<p>Which carrier works best depends on your specific area and where you plan to use the phone - ala your home being a dead spot. Sometimes one carrier won’t work at all while another is full strength. If you can, see if the phones of friends of yours work at the key locations (home, work, college, kid’s location, etc.) and note the carriers. </p>
<p>I’ve had AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint and in my area AT&T works the best but again, your experience might be different.</p>
<p>Ironically, when DD went away to university 5 or 6 years ago, she got an ATT phone at orientation, then when she moved there for school it had no service on campus or in her dorm (now more than 30 days post purchase, as orientation was early)</p>
<p>I fought like crazy and got ATT to cancel without the $175 penalty thanks to Circuit City sales reps, and it took until the next May!! So, we got the good phone, Cingular, which, of course, is now ATT ;)</p>
<p>Zip, my Mom lives in a rural area and my D goes to Dartmouth. I would recommend borrowing a neighbor’s cell phone and see if it works at your house. Coverage is spotty in rural areas, and some may still have only analog towers (this is the case at my Mom’s, we have to go outside and climb a hill to get the Blackberry to work.)
I really think there is no substitute for actually trying.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that even with one carrier, some individual phones pick up better than others. Until recently, my street was a dead zone, and the cell was best used upstairs or in the middle of the street! I still look for the phone with the reputation for the best signal, as I’m in too many spotty areas. When last in the AT&T store, they said most Nokia phones have the best reception these days. No roaming makes life quite a bit easier and cheaper, esp. if you travel at all.</p>
<p>If you need a phone, the iPhone is a poor alternative. It is heavier, larger, and more expensive than a plain old cell phone. If you want to add email capability, Blackberry makes handhelds that are a lot smaller than the iPhone. The iPhone is more of a competitor to the other PDAs than it is to cell phones. </p>
<p>The other advice you’ve had in this thread is great, and I don’t have much to add.</p>
<p>If service is spotty in your area, you should definitely check out T-Mobile; recently they’ve revolutionized the cell phone industry with a cell phone that works on Wi-Fi without using any minutes.</p>
<p>As a current iPhone owner, I’d say that I probably wouldn’t own one if I lived in a rural area just for sheer coverage issues. Don’t get me wrong, I love my phone, but when my family and I vacation in the middle of nowhere, there are zero bars of service (which could be a good or bad thing, depending on how you like to vacation). </p>
<p>I’d stop by local cellular carriers to check plans and see what’s available.</p>
<p>I’d find out not only what service provider his girlfriend has, but what the majority of other students at his college have. That might tell you which service provider has the best reception. Even better if she ends up using the provider that most other students have.</p>
<p>And then there are all the taxes and surcharges they don’t tell you about…</p>
<p>When we were choosing phones I posted on the Carnegie Mellon board to see what phones worked well in Pittsburgh. I second the idea that if there’s a girlfriend in the picture it’s good to have the same provider.</p>
<p>Just wanted to thank all of you for your replies. The links posted early on were a great starting point for me. And the suggestions about checking what provider friends and especially gf are using are excellent advice.</p>
<p>I’ve still got lots of research to do but just wanted to let you know I appreciate the responses.</p>
<p>One tidbit I came across on the CNET review was that a certain type of tracfone does not have roaming charges. I checked with the local radio shack across from my workplace yesterday and he confirmed that the newer tracfones do not have roaming charges. So I’m almost thinking at this point to go that route for son and delay a more involved commitment while I’m working on my college level studies in “cell phone” and waiting for service to improve in my area.</p>
<p>If I purchase a newer tracfone (about $30), with the “life of the phone double minute card” ($49.99), and a year long 400 minute - doubled to 800 minute card ($99.99) he’ll have service for a year and 800 minutes for an initial investment of about $180. Additional minutes would cost a little less than 10 cents/minute by buying the 200 (doubled to 400) minute card for 39.99.</p>
<p>This is sounding cheaper to me than any yearlong contract price. Is there anything I’m missing? Am I totally missing the amount of time he’ll likely be spending on the phone?</p>
<p>Only you can know your S and the volume of communication with a girlfriend. And you of course! My S, whose communication I’d always thought was of the grunt yea or nah variety, amazed me with the volume of his calls. But he does have quite the social life, so the incoming calls alone were quite numerous.</p>