Just for a balanced view, I've had AT&T mobile for years and have been very happy with my service and plan. Dh goes backpacking in the mountains and he's gotten reception when his other friends have not and they've had to borrow his phone to check in. And seeing some of the difficulties that my friends and family have with the other service providers has made me really happy that I stayed with AT&T.

Verizon was our local landline provider in Washington and I didn't care for them one bit. All kinds of billing issues and our phone service would be out for no reason.

On the customer service side, I used to work at an inbound call center (everything from shopping catalogs to mortgages) and do customer service for a couple of cell companies. One of the things I learned at the time is that most big cellular companies are split into regions and that Xcompany Southeast may operate differently than Xcompany Midwest. Depending on which region you've opened your account, you get routed to that regions customer service center and may be the reason why there's such a discrepancy in the service of the carrier.