On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 23:41:10 -0500, nospam wrote:

tl;dr - coverage varies. choose the carrier who has coverage in the
areas in which you travel and at a fair price. do not count on roaming.
there is no single 'best' for everyone.

On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 20:13:54 -0800, Savageduck wrote:

T-Mobile does have much better rural coverage than AT&T, but nowhere as
good as I get with Verizon.

I've had all three, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile.

Out here in the Silicon Valley, coverage seems about the same for each,
although I had them in series, and not sequentially (except for a few
concomitant burner phones).

off topic observation
I dropped Verizon when they added a two-year contract just for replacing a
Kyocera phone that broke which I had under an insurance plan. That's where
I learned the insurance plan had gotchas they don't tell you about; so the
second that the additional two years were up, I went to AT&T (and saved a
few bucks, as it turned out).

I kept AT&T for about 4 or 5 years until I needed a plan sans data for my
family plan. The Blackberry was grandfathered, but AT&T wouldn't allow me
to have what they called a "smart phone" without data, even though they'd
happily block data (saying it was for "my protection"). I dropped AT&T like
a hot potatoe like I dropped Netflix when they changed their plan, and
never looked back on either one.

Moving to T-Mobile, I loved that they did everything differently. I mean
everything. I could buy my own phone. No contract. No data overage charges
ever. Calling Europe was 20 cents a minute. Data is unlimited in Europe. No
roaming charges. And, I didn't have to have data if I didn't want it. I
could get phones from them for an additional $50 over what I could get on
the market, where they'd charge me 1/24th the phone on the bill. I didn't
even have to tell them what phone I was using. Everything about T-Mobile
was different than Verizon & AT&T.

And the coverage was about the same (sucky in the mountains, great in the
valley) for all three.

/ off topic observation