Have used all the Tracfone brand services, which usually go through a Verizon tower. Got our own tower a couple of years ago, which improved things 100%, when it works. ANY power outage, and it's lost. IF one can get a line of sight to the TV towers, one can get a signal. Otherwise, HAM radios are a better bet. Lately, last week or so, zero service, on any phone except my daughters Straight talk cell, which seems to use a different band. (Still a Tracfone service, though, it's a subsidiary) In past years, Tracfones, whatever kind, were spotty at best here. Net 10, worthless always. Straight talk, We only have a years worth of service I can comment on. Seems to be reliable, stable, but pricey for a teen cell. Only two price points available, $30.00 or $45.00. No matter what phone you have. All in all, I was happy enough with any Tracfone until recently. With the new tower, even tiny cells with no external antennas worked well, with some dead spots around the Kingsley area. Especially near the TV towers, service ALWAYS drops off there. (On C-70 to Sioux City, or coming back) Spotty in other area also, especially out in the surrounding country. IN town, no problems until, as I say, lately. Now, ALL Tracfones we have are useless. Zero bars. No clues as to why. All we get are auto-generated "We are sorry for your inconvenience" replies. Very hard to get a human on a line, and if you do, they seem to have American English as a third language. Hard to understand. Slow, if ever, to make up for losses that are their fault, unlike earlier years. Now, they seem to act as if it's your fault, your too dumb to know how to properly use your cell, that was working fine ten minutes ago! "Re programing" is often needed, which is a real pain. However, if they can work out this outage and the customer service issues, they aren't too bad a deal if you can't get, or don't want to get, a 'regular' contract based service. A range of phones, but many 'features' like Bluetooth, will be locked, and can be used for little, if ANY-thing. Like the cameras. NO way to get then off the phone and onto computer, despite the Mini USB port, That's for charging only. You have to email the photo to yourself, assuming you have a phone that can. And that is painfully slow, ties up the phone, and burns through minutes. Bluetooth is only good for headsets, and nothing else. NO WiFi on any phone I ever had. (In 10 + years, we've burned through a lot of them, what with three daughters) In nearby cities of any size, there is never any problems I've encountered in getting a signal. Only out in the boonies, where you most likely would have a flat, get stuck, hurt, etc. Even 911 can be spotty. Although, to their credit, that usually works better than any thing else, and takes no minutes. As long as the battery has any juice, it will try to make a 911 call. Overall, excepting this latest 'issue', I'd give them as a service, 3 of 5 stars, for pure talk and text functions. I don't use much else. The phones vary, and so do capabilities, alarm clocks, etc... I don't care, I want to be able to reach someone when I need to, period. Anything else is fluff.

It is very hard to get Verizon reception in Kingsley, IA. Do not get a Verizon phone if you plan to use it in or around Kingsley, IA. Data cards work, sort of, at 1x. There is no such thing as 3G in Kingsley, IA.