I do most of my travelling in Lee and Scott counties in Virginia and Kingsport. Alltel service has actually been great in the region. I have absolutely no problems in Gate City, Duffield, Jonesville, Duffield, or Pennington. Even the more rural places tend to have good coverage with Alltel. I did try Verizon before going with Alltel but once you get out of Gate City, Verizon has some real problems with a low signal. I just want to share my experience with everyone that might come here that if do a lot of traveling in these areas, Alltel is by far your best bet for coverage here and they do a really good job here.

Overall I'd have to say Sprint PCS is very good in this area, a couple of years ago it was really bad but Sprint really has turned this area around. In Kingsport, JC, and Bristol Sprint's coverage is excellent and even in some rural areas like Gate City while the coverage isn't perfect it's quite good. The service with Sprint in this area isn't quite as good as Verizon but it's very close! Sprint though offers better rate plans, cheaper phones, and 7 PM nights so they are hard to beat. Overall I'd have to say based on my experiences that Verizon and Sprint PCS are the two best companies coverage wise to go with in this area. Forget Cingular, SunCom, and Nextel in this area they blow!

No reception at all in Southwest VA once you leave Gate City on T-Mobile.

Overall from what I have seen so far T-Mobile is quite good in this area. I've had no service problems with them in Kingsport, Gate City, Bristol, JC, or Blountville. On the road my coverage has been very good. Even inside my signal is usually fine although I'll admit I've been in a few buildings where my signal is too weak to use my phone. Be warned though if you live and / or travel in rural parts of SW VA. T-Mobile has little to no coverage at all in many places of rural SW VA. Check their street level coverage maps online before you sign up! If you stick though to the immediate Tri-Cities areas like I do I think you will be very happy with T-Mobile.

Verizon Wireless coverage in the Tri-Cities, TN / VA area seems to be awesome! I've had signal everywhere outdoors in the tri-cities area and even indoors I haven't lost complete signal yet. Definately the best wireless provider for this area!

Overall Virgin Mobile (which uses the Sprint PCS Network) has good coverage in the Kingsport / Gate City area. Sprint has excellent coverage in downtown Kingsport and is also quite good in the Bloomingdale area. Sprint could use some work with indoor coverage in this area as well as improve coverage in the East Carters Valley region on the Gate City, VA side. I don't recommend Sprint if you live in East Carters Valley on the Gate City side as it's quite weak in that area. Sprint is worth trying in this area but check their maps first as they don't have coverage in some rural areas.