Talking about reception in Vermont, I tried them all, #1 Cingular by far the best "Full Bars" why? because they roam on Unicel, and Unicel specializes in rural areas! Nationwide no roaming charges with Cingular. Traveled thru VT (south to north) from CT to Montreal full reception, some areas had one to two bars, but other than that I had reception all the way. #2 Verizon but not as good as Cingular I have full reception in some areas whereas Verizon customers sadly don't have even one bar "No Service" that's what they get. #3 T-Mobil but, they roam~ So the bottom line you can't go wrong with Cingular in VT, I have no idea about Sprint, I tried once Nextel, it worked in Burlington and Montpelier area I haven't tried in rural areas so I am not sure how that works that's about it. Hope this helps.

See my note on Verizon in same spot. Both places seem to have good coverage on the flats. The hills (or even dips in roads) just cut it off. Unicell says if I buy the hoity-toidy Motorola phone, I can buy a magnet atenna to put on the roof of my car and improve reception more... . Again, the ultimate test is to just sign up for both systems (GSM and Verizon) and bring back the lesser within the 15 or 30 days they say you can. I did look funny driving around the back roads squinting at a cell phone... ..

Reception great everywhere except at home. So much for free long distance.

I did the ultimate test: I signed up for both Verizon and Unicell. Verizon gets ZIppo at my house and at my neighbor's house (which looks right at Mt. Pritchard... which has a cell tower). Looks like I will be brining the Verizon phone back. It's such a pain that you can't borrow a phone for a day and try it out. Oy!