Phone Service Recommendations?

[sunnyone]

What phone service has the most complete coverage as you’re traveling around the United States?

[Dennis mn]

Only had experience with Verizon. We travel South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. Never experienced no service.

[Jon Vermilye]

I travel with both Verizon & AT&T phones & cell modems. I have run into a few places where one works better than the other, one works when the other doesn't, and a few areas such as the Rio Grande Village and Cottonwood campgrounds in Big Bend National Park & the Cades Cove campground in the Great Smoky Mountain NP and many of the secondary roads out west where neither finds a signal.

If I had two pick one, it would be Verizon for the slightly better coverage. On the other hand, I tend to get less drops listening to internet radio with the AT&T modem than I do with the Verizon, so if I have an AT&T signal, I use it.

[Perryb67]

Like Jon we travel with two phones. One Verizon and the other a Google Fi phone with T-Moble/Sprint. Take your pick on which had better coverage. When we traveled from Lanesboro down Iowa to the Quad Cities Verizon was non-existent most of the way. We also had Verizon problems in Western Texas. Other than that on the major road where we travel both have good service. Today we rarely go without service traveling, but boondocking we're without service quite often.

We used to have Verizon year round, but after T-Mobile purchased Sprint and vastly improved their coverage to at least equal Verizon's coverage, we now have T-Mobile year round and fire up our Pixel phone with Verizon only for our 3 month winter trip. Why the switch? Verizon has no senior plan, soT-Mobile is at least $20 cheaper a month.

Works for us,

Perry

[AlekP]

We're planning to switch back to Verizon this summer. A few years ago we started running into issues where Verizon wasn't getting service where AT&T was, such as Northern Michigan, and at that time while Verizon had more 4g towers at&t had more 2/3g and a total volume of towers overall. With the introduction and adoption of 5g towers, all 2/3g towers were shut down in 2022, at&t as early as February, Verizon waiting until the end of the year. There was a notable decline in service availability with at&t in MI, FL wasn't really noticeable where we were at, and there were VAST areas of Oregon that were massive AT&t dead zones.


If you trust the FCC coverage maps, overall Verizon has the most widespread coverage, followed by at&t then t-mobile. V and A have a small portion of 5g, t-mobile has a superior number of 5g towers, but still overall less towers/lower coverage.

[sunnyone]

Thanks to all for sharing that info.
Those coverage maps tell the story graphically. Interesting, and a little sad, that there are many areas of the country without reliable phone or internet access.

https://www.fcc.gov/BroadbandData/MobileMaps/mobile-map

[theremin]

I use Verizon and rarely have problems. I did hit some completely dead spots in the UP of Michigan last year, unfortunately at same place where I hit a deer... But I carry a CB and a portable ham tranceiver for places like that. Verizon has been good for me.

Dave