New Brunswick/Rutgers NJ Coverage?

Go with Verizon. I live in Staten Island and have friend that live up at Rutgers and they also have Verizon and say the coverage is very good.

 

Verizon or AT&T is your best bet. Definately stay away from Sprint if your friends are going to venture anywhere out of the city.

For AT&T, New Brunswick is right near the border between 1900 MHz E block and 800 MHz A block. Not exactly certain where it switches over, but if they are on the 800 MHz side, Cingular & AT&T are one in the same network, if it is any help.

Being right next to Route 1 as it is, I'm surprised your cousin has had any trouble at all since coverage all aong there is quite generous.

 

Rutgers New Brunswick is definitely in Cingular's territory. Cingular 800Mhz coverage begins about 10 - 15 miles north of Rutgers. AT&T has coverage in the 1900Mhz A block and E block in some areas in central and south Jersey, but that coverage seems to be on its early stages. Most likely AT&T uses Cingular's network in the Rutgers New Brunswick area.

 

I've had Cingular for 2.5 years now, and been a student or employee of Rutgers the entire time. My phone works great on and around campus. Right now I'm looking at it and it's on a Cingular tower with 4/5 signal bars, occasionally flashing on the fifth bar. A Cingular tech once told me they recently (2 months or so) installed a new tower somewhere on or near campus.

Unfortunately, Cingular's new plans are total crap. I guess if I were a new customer not already spoled by past promotions, $40 for 400 minutes with rollover would sound good to me... but I'll keep my grandfathered plan without rollover... not worth the sacrifices IMO. If you look at national plans, they now offer a pathetic amount of airtime, though you still can't ever be charged for roaming.

That free v60 from AT&T on a $40 plan with 500 national minutes is really looking good to me, especially since in this area the quality of Cingular and AT&T service (call quality, not customer service) is almost completely identical. If considering TDMA in the area, I would definitely see if the free v60 offer is still open. One guy I know even got a $100 rebate on top and got PAID to take that awesome phone. If I wanted one from Cingular I'd have to pay $250. No thanks. When my phone breaks, it's sayonara Cingular if they don't come up with better promotions than this.

Basically, Cingular's service is excellent here at RU, but I don't think their new plans are appealing to new customers unless the local rollover plan is appealing, despite its mere 3000 N&W minutes (can you imagine only talking 100 off-peak minutes a day? okay, I'm kidding, but it's just a sign they're tightening their belts a bit much)

 

I agree Nester. I just look at it this way. They are simply moving in the same category with everyone else but they haven't gotten there yet. Cingular is known for being tight with off-peak minutes for some reason. Now, they went from having the best national plans to having the worse, but we have to look at the new Cingular Nation plans as competition for AT&T Digital One Rate plans and Verizon SingleRate plans. Soon they will be introducing Nation Preferred Network plans in the areas where they don't exist to compete with AT&T National Network, Verizon America's Choice and Sprint PCS. I believe these will be introduced together with the addition of the GAIT phone Nokia 6340. Everything good is temporary and the time for the best national rate plans has come to an end. With these radical changes, it is possible they are trying to get back lost profit or getting ready for something else in the future.

If we do the math, we can see that the new Cingular Nation plans are basically the same as those from AT&T and Verizon:

Verizon National SingleRate 150 - $35.00/month - $0.23/minute
Verizon National SingleRate 400 - $55.00/month - $0.14/minute
Verizon National SingleRate 600 - $75.00/month - $0.13/minute

Cingular Nation 150 - $29.99/month - $0.20/minute
Cingular Nation 250 - $39.99/month - $0.16/minute
Cingular Nation 350 - $49.99/month - $0.14/minute
Cingular Nation 500 - $69.99/month - $0.14/minute

AT&T Digital One Rate 450 - $59.99/month - $0.13/minute
AT&T Digital One Rate 650 - $79.99/month - $0.12/minute

 

I used VoiceStream at Rutgers over the past 2 years, and have been very satisfied with it. They installed a new cell 4 months ago on the same tower Cingular uses on the Livingston College campus. They also have cells in downtown New Brunswick, the apartment building that borders on the Douglass campus, and on Easton Avenue (covering the Rutgers College campus)
The only area of weak coverage I found is Busch campus, but other than that it's fine.

Cingular is a good alternative if you don't want to go with VStream. Their plans suck as someone pointed out.... watch out if you get the local plans, they only cover NJ and NYC.

I wouldn't recommend Sprint due to the very large number of dropped calls..

Szymon

 

FYI, I am on Busch campus. Cingular works great here. Everyone I know here (through work) has Cingular or Nextel, so I can't comment on VoiceStream, but back in the Omnipoint days I lived with my girlfriend in New Brunswick and her (prepaid Omnipoint) phone worked fine in this area, so I'd expect that VS still has at least acceptable coverage across the RU campus. (we lived 2 blocks from the Rutgers Student Center)

Some examples for Cingular: I'm in the middle of CoRE building in a server room. I'm on the 3rd floor and it workd great here. It's a little diminished in the 2nd floor bathrooms (no windows) but still usable. It works inside Busch Campus Center too. I didn't have my phone yet when I still lived on campus so I can't speak for other Busch buildings. It works fine in all of the academic buildings on College Ave for sure though (1-2 years ago).

Like Bobolite was saying, surely Cingular will come out with something decent soon (Nation Preferred probably) and they'll look like a good option again. The signal is certainly acceptable, so I'd give TDMA consideration if I were signing up for new service to be used at RU.

Also, I should mention that the Cingular NJ plan (which I am on) covers all of NJ (except Warren county last time I checked, though I never got charged for using my phone there), NYC, LI, and I think Westchester, Orange, and Putnam. Certainly a fine plan if you don't leave the area much (like me), but not a nifty as the former Cingular Nation plans.

 

Update: I was just at the Fuddruckers (mmm) in New Brunswick last night, and AT&T is on E block, with Cingular as "Extended area" so in that area if you go with AT&T, you are able to use either network. I'm not sure if it works that way with cingular.

just an FYI...

 

AT&T won't let Cingular users roam on their towers as this is an old and established Cingular area. It would be nice though if they did.

 

IdiOTeQnoLogY

Make sure that your cousins voicestream phones are updated (software etc). Also how old are the phones

Jack