WE have NEXTEL..which is now part of Sprint..and when I had to buy a new phone, Nextel sold me this sprint/Nextell Hybird that was Sprint for cell service and Nextell for Direct Connect. We live south of 466 near LSL and I will tell you the cell service through Sprinit was absolutely terrible. WE changed to Nextell and it was and is great.
Go to this link (below) and type in 32162...you will see sprint coverage is mostly fair to good depending upon your location while Nextell is mostly BEST coverage.
http://coverage.sprint.com/IMPACT.jsp?INTNAV=ATG:FT:Cov
WE returned our sprint phone during the 30 day trial period..Nextell has been great.