<p>Which providers have decent cell service on campus at Cornell? Is it reasonable to use a cell phone as your only phone? If you use skype to make calls from your dorm room if the cell service is poor there, does that eat up too much of your bandwidth limit?</p>
<p>I have AT&T, and when I visited campus twice, both times the phone service worked great, including data.</p>
<p>We have Verizon as does our daughter. Never had a dropped call from her all year. And our D calls nearly every day. We skype about 2X per week and she has not had issues with the bandwidth. </p>
<p>I hear that AT&T has been upgrading. A year ago, many suggested Verizon and not AT&T becuase the coverage was not good. I would wait to hear from students who use AT&T before choosing that.</p>
<p>T-Mobile is terrible… i visited for cornell days and i had to walk out of a building and start walking away for a couple of steps before i even got reception. switched to verizon as a result</p>
<p>ATnT is perfect over there.
Friend had Virgin Mobile - perfect, too.
Cannot say about the rest.</p>
<p>Verizon has worked well for my daughter, both on and off campus. She has no landline. She even did telephone job interviews using her cell phone with no problem.</p>
<p>Verizon is still the best on campus. AT&T comes second.</p>
<p>20 GB is a lot 
So, unless you watch a lot of videos or download a lot of things, you would be fine :)</p>
<p>My friend who goes to Cornell uses Verizon and hasn’t had an issue yet.</p>
<p>My S currently has Virgin Mobile. His phone is shot and he needs a new one, but he has a lot of minutes built up on his account (we put on the minimum every 3 months, but he never uses them up). But if Verizon is the best at Cornell, maybe we should get him a Verizon phone and hand the Virgin account down to his brother. Does Verizon have any good deals on plans (prepaid or post-paid) for a student who doesn’t use the phone very much (and probably will use it a bit more once he is in school, but he’s just not a phone guy really).</p>
<p>
It’s 10, not 20.</p>
<p>What about Sprint? Is it really bad or manageable? I made calls outside while on campus and it seemed fine, but didn’t think to check reception in the dorms/inside buildings. I heard it’s spotty on north campus, so do I need to switch? </p>
<p>Is having a data plan necessary/useful? I currently just have a regular phone and I’m thinking of getting a smartphone for college, but I’m concerned that if service is spotty, data coverage may be too and won’t even be worth it. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>AT&T is great. 3G coverage is good too.</p>
<p>BTW, if you’re getting a data plan you should start with the most basic one first. You can just use red rover when on campus.</p>
<p>kind of OT but can most smartphones use the local wireless (red rover) instead of their data plans?</p>
<p>
Oh really…?? Alright, it used to be 10 GB. It’s now and has been 20 GB for at least 1+ year.
Source: [CIT:</a> NUBB Fees and Billing](<a href=“http://www.cit.cornell.edu/services/nubb/fees.cfm]CIT:”>http://www.cit.cornell.edu/services/nubb/fees.cfm)</p>
<p>
If your smartphone supports WiFi connection, then you can connect to RedRover instead of using your data plan whenever you want to use internet.</p>
<p>
Really!? I see that 20 GB now but when I singed up for something at Cornell (I think it was the NetID), I got a Terms/Agreement thing that said 10GB…
I don’t know what that was for, meh.</p>
<p>Is there a way to find out how much bandwidth one has used before going over the limit? Do Netflix users constantly go over, or is it pretty reasonable for watching 2-3 movies a week? </p>
<p>Thanks to all who recommended using red rover for data! I’ll definitely take that into account when picking phones/plans.</p>
<p>No Sprint users on here? Anyone? Bueller?</p>
<p>Hi, yes, Sprint user here. My daughter is a freshman and lives on North Campus, pretty much the only place in Ithaca where Sprint service is not good. From her dorm (Bauer), her phone is on constant roam. This roaming lead to some interesting discussions with Sprint about the “unlimited” (69.95/month) plan, which I believe I finally won. </p>
<p>I recently upgraded my phone, and thinking my daughter’s phone was just older and maybe not picking up signals, I walked around campus. My brand new HTC had no better reception than d’s older phone on North Campus, but as I said, Sprint reception is great except on North.</p>
<p>It is my understanding that Virgin uses Sprint towers. </p>
<p>According to D Verizon has the best service up on North Campus.</p>
<p>Thank you, momofswimmer!! Would you recommend switching providers, or did it work out fine in the end? I’m on a family plan with Sprint and don’t use that many minutes, so obviously it would be much, much cheaper for me to stay with Sprint. </p>
<p>I have to make the decision soon though since my phone is broken and I need to renew my contract to get a new one.</p>
<p>It actually worked out fine in the end, but gave us a bit of a scare initially. The last thing you need with a kid at Cornell is a $1000 cell phone bill!</p>
<p>I am in the same boat, as D’s phone is up for renewal in August and quite frankly, I’m not sure what to do. You can’t beat Sprint for price, but I don’t want her roaming all over Ithaca looking for service bars either. She will be living at Risley next semester, still up on North where the service is not good. She would prefer going to Verizon (and an I Phone), but I am not convinced, and neither is my checkbook - Verizon is quite a bit more per month!</p>
<p>When you renew, I would make sure Sprint is aware of the situation on North Campus though, and try to head off any potential problems. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>