Check cell phone coverage

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Before you sign up for a cell phone for the kid, check to see if the college is in an area with decent coverage. Just yesterday i saw Nancy Grace on the today show with two telephones in her hand. Someone asked if she had one for each of her twins or something like that. She said her ATT always drops out in NYC so she had a Verizon as a back up phone.</p>

<p>I live in Chicago and have ATT and there is very little coverage around Loyola and some real dead zones in Evanston and around Northwestern University. The city is very very dangerous this summer and many times I wanted to call 911 and could not get a single bar on my ATT phone. But the friends and family plan was put in place for the DD in Marquette which only has ATT and Alltel coverage. Now that i am in Chicago i must also get two phones to get coverage , most likely a T Mobile.</p>

2

<p>I haven’t run into this problem in years but some of my coworkers do report dead zones for their wireless service from particular providers. The one place where my wireless doesn’t work where I would like it to is my office.</p>

<p>If you have multiple phones and you want to be reachable, I recommend the Google Voice application. They provide you with a phone number and when someone calls it, it rings all of your phones and connects the first one that picks up. I have this setup for my daughter to call me to pick her up from school. Last year she called my office number and then my cell if the office number didn’t pick up. This year she only has to dial one number.</p>

<p>The problems that Chicago has is popping up in other cities. Something that parents and kids want to be aware of if the kids attend colleges in big cities.</p>