Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) operation has grown very rapidly in the country. The popular network providers in Nigeria are MTN, Globacom (Glo), Airtel and Etisalat now 9mobile. The study investigated the strength of educational status and service quality as determinants of university-community preference for GSM service providers in Ondo State, Nigeria. Two research questions were raised to guide the study. The study was restricted to undergraduate students, teaching and non-teaching staff of Federal and State Universities in Ondo State, Nigeria. This study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The population comprised 38,631 undergraduate students, teaching and non-teaching staff of the four universities who were subscribers to the different service providers in Ondo State, Nigeria. Ten per cent of the population was sampled, research instrument was used to collect information for the study. The scales were tested for reliability using Guttman split-half method with r-value of 0.859, Three thousand, eight hundred and sixty-five copies of the instrument were distributed, three thousand, six hundred and seventy-one copies were found to be properly filled and used for analysis. The research questions were analyzed using descriptive statistic. The strength of educational status was found significant. In the study, customers with SSCE as highest educational qualification (students) have the highest preference for network service provide. Quality of service was found to significantly preference for MTN as network service provider in Ondo State. Based on the findings, it was recommended, among others, that the network providers should train and retrain their staff on how to rendered satisfactory services to their customers. The university community should endeavor to subscribe to the network that have high quality in order to ensure effectiveness and efficiency of its members
Keywords: Service Quality, educational status, network providers and preference
