US Cellular by far has the best reception in Bakersville and the rest of Mitchell County, as well as Avery and Yancey Counties. Verizon has good reception as well, and these are also the only two companies with towers in these counties. I have had Sprint and AT&T also; Sprint will work fairly well in the area, but it will be roaming on US Cellular or Verizon the whole time, Sprint's closest native coverage is in Marion around I-40. AT&T and T-Mobile have no coverage whatsoever in the area, and since they use GSM they cannot roam on US Cellular or Verizon's CDMA towers. The closest AT&T coverage would be around Johnson City, TN, about 30 miles away. I suppose it might be possible to pick up a tower in Tennessee from one of the higher mountaintops on the TN / NC border, but that would be more of a fluke than anything. I doubt GSM coverage will ever be any better in this area, if they add towers anywhere it will probably be in Asheville, where coverage exists but isn't very competitive with US Cellular and Verizon.

There are some towers on Pumpkin Patch Mountain near here and if Verizon put theirs up there too it would solve the problem for miles around, I'm sure.