Decent Cell Phone Reception in Providence? (college, living in, cost)

[mh1381]

Can anyone recommend a carrier and/or phone that gets decent reception in Providence? I currently have Virgin Mobile, Kyocera phone, and probably 60% of the time I can't get a signal. I live near Hope Street and spend a lot of time around Brown, so I would love to hear about your experiences in those areas.

Thanks!

[AlfieBoy]

Originally Posted by mh1381

Can anyone recommend a carrier and/or phone that gets decent reception in Providence? I currently have Virgin Mobile, Kyocera phone, and probably 60% of the time I can't get a signal. I live near Hope Street and spend a lot of time around Brown, so I would love to hear about your experiences in those areas.

Thanks!

I live on College Hill and have excellent result with an iPhone 4 using AT&T. The signal is so strong that I use it to Skype or use FaceTIme, and YouTubes stream without annoying buffering.

[mh1381]

Thanks for the response. I was hoping to find something less expensive than the iPhone, but it gets uniformly good reviews from the people I know who have one.

[GermanSpy]

I had T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T while living in the Providence Metro area. All three were fine while using a variety of phones. If you plan to leave the city limits a lot, I'd probably take AT&T over the other two.

[AlfieBoy]

Originally Posted by mh1381

Thanks for the response. I was hoping to find something less expensive than the iPhone, but it gets uniformly good reviews from the people I know who have one.

For purposes of cell connectivity (i.e. reliable access to a network so your calls don't drop or not hitting dead zones), it's the network you need to be concerned about, not the phone. You can get an AT&T plan with a "dumb" phone as part of the deal, which may lower your monthly cost versus a smart phone. You may not need access to the Web or other wonderful features of a smartphone.