:uva: OT: Seeking advice for rising first-years (and their fams)

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My son is going to UVa next year! Thought I’d start a thread for anyone else in these shoes who need advice.

The question I have today: what’s the best cell phone provider for a 1st year? We use Verizon as a family, but it’s a bit underwhelming whenever I’m in cville. Gemini says to go with AT&T…

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I had T-Mobile when I attended seven years ago and it worked well-enough

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I visit my daughter there over the past 17 years or so and our AT&T service has been spotty at best. My son-in-law has T-mobile and it’s seems to be good.

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I was just in cville a few days ago and At&T worked great. Verizon will work as well!

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My daughter is a rising third year at UVa…we have a T Mobile family package for our phones…no issues for her at school…

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As someone who lives in the Cville area with Verizon.. don’t get Verizon

Was a recent neighborhood discussion about the spotty Verizon service and as for alternatives, most said AT&T and T Mobile, with a slight edge to T Mobile.

Some had good things to say about Consumer Cellular as well

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My oldest girl is a rising third year and her sister will join her this fall. Verizon works fine…unless phone is dropped in water.

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You’re on WiFi like 80%+ of the time as a student. It’s everywhere on grounds and they’ll have it in their home. I don’t think it’s worth switching providers for that unless you’re already searching for a better deal and going to switch anyways.

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C’ville is old Sprint country so T-Mobile tends to work the best since they bought their network

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Yeah like the eduroam coverage table could have been simplified by just saying “In a building? Then Yes”

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Wait - what’s wrong with the pay phones at the end of the hall by the bathrooms? The last thing a first year wants or needs is to be connected to their parental units 24/7 . . .

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Hard to do the instagram posts from that pay phone!

Thanks for the advice - going to give Google Fi (which runs on TMobile’s spectrum) a go for the whole family. I see international service is free on Fi, which will be handy for some international trips I have coming up.

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Calls are 20 cents a minute if you don’t have the International Premium plan when you are overseas. T-Mobile is 25 cents a minute… and you get free WIFI on most Transatlantic flights.