Poor Cell Phone Service

Dear fellow University of Alabama students,

In our world today there are always complaints about the technology, especially when it comes to our beloved cell phones. As college students, cell phones are a large part of our day-to-day life on campus. Everyone wants the latest and greatest raves in the cell phone industry, such as the new 3G iphone; but is having the newest technology out there worth it if there are very few cell phone towers, which means slow service or no service at all. Tuscaloosa is a perfect example of such a problem.

Many students on and off campus have been feeling the pain of poor reception service in Tuscaloosa. From personal experiences of not being able to send or receive texts or calls on the average weekday, to hearing about fellow students complain about their poor service, one can conclude that this is a fixable problem. After speaking with several students, everyone agrees that game day reception is always a huge predicament. Some students do not even bother to bring their phones to the game because of the poor service not only during, but also before and after each home game.

Regardless of whether it is a game day or not, many students still deal with poor reception on the campus. Allan Crocket, a junior majoring in business and an AT&T user, experiences problems outside certain buildings on campus. “Either the call is lost or it just goes straight to voicemail,” Allan complains. Other students have also complained about having trouble receiving and sending calls as well. Although this problem causes a lot of anger and annoyance for many, there is a reason behind it all: there are no cell phone towers near campus.

After looking at a detailed map of the Tuscaloosa area, it seems the only towers in the area around campus are third party providers and telecommunication centers such as radio and television sources. The closest cell phone tower is a Cingular tower on the opposite side of 15^th Street, which is closer to Northport. Considering the fact that most of the students do have newer phones through popular services such as AT&T and Verizon, one would think there would be more towers, creating better service for the majority. There are over 25,000 students at the University, and it makes no sense that the companies do not factor these changes at colleges and universities. Basically, the sum of the problem is a lack of phone towers for high volumes of people in a small area.

Luckily, there are options to fix this annoying issue most students at the University face. The easiest step is to make people aware of what is causing this issue by publishing the topic in the newspapers and by placing flyers around campus. Once people realize this does not have to be an issue and their voice can cause changes, they may be more inclined to act upon it. If there are enough complaints sent to the individual phone companies, they will be pushed to act on the issue and install more towers in the area. Another strategy would be to discourage use of certain carriers to get their attention and maybe see some action taken. This problem is not an easy one to solve, but with a bit of awareness and desire to take action, it can eventually become a problem of Tuscaloosa’s past.