[captain1202]

After much analysis I switched to Tracfone ( yes martha, the "pay as you go" phone). I have had AT&T, Sprint & Verizon all with varying degrees of success and expense. I travel a lot in my work (on the water) and hands down, Tracfone has THE BEST coverage of all. During two recent house hunting visits the TV I was in every nook and cranny and not once did I notice any drop in service.

The reason for this is that Tracfone has arrangements with ALL major cell carriers to use their tower. For that reason, I may have service on a Verizon tower when the SPrint user next to does not have service. I have shipmates who have mostly Verizon and Cingular and I always have service when they do not.

BTW, I only pay .08 cents per minute and they carry over indefinitely. Not a heavy usage month?.. no problem, the minutes will hang around. I used to think my 2000 minute Sprint plan was the nuts until I started paying over $120/mo for 2 phones and figured I was paying, on average for 1 year of service, .24/minute. That is all costs divided by minutes used.

I can;t comment on other "pay as you go" phones at the moment but when I looked 2 years ago, Tracfone offered the best features.

Another nice thing, you own the phone, no contracts, your existing phone number can be ported to the phone. buy minutes right on the phone, etc. etc..

But I ramble on......