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When living in a dorm, it’s quite easy to spot those students who have a Verizon phone and those who don’t.

Ride the elevator up and down a few times, and you’ll see that Verizon users casually enter the elevator, Motorola T720 in hand, blabbering about whatever relationship issues they are having for that week. Non-Verizon users, on the other hand, quickly realize their dialing devices are useless in the elevator – and of minimal use anywhere else on campus.

As most people should know by now, it’s not the size (or cuteness factor) of your phone, but the range of your carrier signal that matters in the cell phone game. As far as I can tell, Verizon has the best service of any provider in the greater Los Angeles area, and yet a majority of UCLA students stay with their inferior companies.

They wander the dorms in search of windows, waiting for the skies to part and a clear signal to rain down upon them. Besides doing themselves a disservice, they are supporting providers who keep standards low and static roaring.

In a field saturated with a mind-boggling number of cell phone models replacing each other every few months, a person should be able to expect the same kind of competition in terms of service. Yet, partly due to campus policy and cell phone industry practices, UCLA students have suffered through more than their fair share of dropped calls. The only way to correct these grievances is for students to demand change through their dollars.

While at one point it was understandable to avoid the mobile giant, changing legislation and campus resolutions have made resistance futile. As of Monday, new FCC rules allow users to divorce their cell phone provider while retaining possession of their beloved phone number. Inconvenience is no longer an option.

Up to a year ago, you could have argued it was UCLA’s fault that connection signals were so bad. In 2002, there was a temporary ban on the installation of extra antennae sites on campus. The ban is now gone, and it is up to individual carriers to spend the money to improve services in UCLA.

So far, I have not seen connections improve, and there is no reason to believe that cell phone providers will fix conditions on the residential hill unless we demand it. If we accept static, static is all we will ever get.

One of the major differences between providers is which technology they utilize. Verizon and Sprint PCS use Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology while the others continue to use Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA). Generally, CDMA technology allows for better service for more calls in any given site per antenna.

Whether it’s because they use CDMA or for some other reason, Verizon continues to outshine their competitors. They may charge a little more, but the advantages (better service) are worth it. And the best way to foster a little healthy competition is to boycott those providers who are subpar.

It is therefore up to us. To complain about lack of reception without switching over is not an option.

For those of us not tied down by the jail sentence that is a two-year contract, this is a prime opportunity to step into a plan that actually works for you. Switching now could directly improve your connection and would encourage the other major providers to step up and deliver an acceptable level of service. In an age where a cell phone is as essential as a refrigerator, it is a wonder that we use the inconvenience of changing numbers as an excuse to accept a readily fixable problem.

We deserve a provider who won’t leave us in static. Our voices deserve to be heard.

Moon is a second-year psychology student. E-mail him at jmoon@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.