Well I just got back from a skiing trip. We went to Copper Mountain and stayed in the Dillon Valley. It was awsome and so was my cell phone coverage. This is a review for Cingular Wireless GSM. I have full signal most of the time in the valley - but sometimes when I would make a call the bars would bounce back and forth from 7 / 7 to 4 / 7. On Copper Mountain I had service at the lodge / mountain base, I also had service on all the runs. On our way to and from Denver I had service in Georgetown, Idaho Springs, Alice Valley, Silver Plume, Loveland Pass, and almost all the other small towns and along I-70. I did not get service along I-70 about 12 miles before Silver Plume (I lost service there for about 3 minutes) - but besides that I was great usually 4 / 7 to 7 / 7 bars. The same exact stuff happened with T-Mobile - they had the same performance as Cingular.

Digital only phones, such as the VX4500 with Verizon, or any GSM phone have practically no coverage in Mountain areas such as A-Basin and Winter Park. There are regions of good reception, but shadowing effects are significant. Non-interstate highways are also wastelands for digital service, so since analog service is still provided in many of these areas, I still carry an old expired trimode phone for "911" emergency calls. Maybe it's a "West of the Mississippi" problem, too much area, not enough subscribers...