Some of the comments below are out of date. In Putney and Brattleboro there are towers owned by Unicel and US Cellular with possibly one Verizon tower in Brattleboro and a smattering of old Nextel service now offered by Sprint (not recommended). Unicel is in flux - it just got bought by Verizon. They are going to shut down the network (or sell it?) and convert the towers to their own standard. AT&T, formerly Cingular dropped it's roaming agreement recently, so most of what's on the on-line reviews is out of date. Not good. Verizon has been using US Celluar's network (will that continue after they intigrate Unicel?). It really depends where you are, whether US Cellular or Unicel (for now) has better reception. My impression is that on the whole US Celluar does better. The center of Putney gets good US Cellular reception. So does Bellows Falls and Brattleboro. There's a dead spot on I-91 between Bratt and Putney. Pine Banks Rd.and Kurn Hattin Rd are on the edge of service - it can be frustrating. I use an antenna, which makes all the difference, and I get 1 bar on Kurn Hattin Rd (but that's enough). Westminster West has no service unless you are high on one of the ridges.

The good news: Cingular works great around here. It's using Unicel's GSM towers, and it's a great fit for our needs. The VERY bad news: Cingular itself doesn't serve Vermont, and we've been sent 2 notices (so far) that >50% of our usage is NOT on Cingular's towers, so we'll soon be kicked off. We've got well over 1400 rollover minutes accrued in our account, and our usage isn't very large. No matter it's all in the percentage, so beware. [Also note - though our warning letter said "greater than 50%" off-network usage is the problem, the very nice Cingular phone rep said the number is actually 40%, as of April, 2006!]

I actually have Unicel as a carrier. I get much better reception around here with the new GSM network. Unicel is unfortunatly the best choice for this area. Beware though, they are pains in the butt to deal with. Our service has been interrupted 3 times in the past month due to their errors. Also calling customer service takes about 30 minutes to talk to someone. The store locations are not much better. You get faster service, however, unless you are dealing with the regonal manager they cannot do much to help you out.

At&t's / Cingular's TDMA network still works very well in Vermont and New Hampshire. The GSM dosen't work at all. You currently can't buy TDMA phones from AT&T or Cingular anymore due to the rollout of the GSM phones so hold on to the ones you have until the GSM network gets better. I get Digital service in the most remote places ever with the TDMA phone. You can walk in the woods and still have a decent signal. I have used this phone all over VT and NH including ski areas and have never had a problem. Everyone that has these new technology services don't get any service. Which is better? A little better technology you will never notice or being able to make a call! TDMAers hold on to you phones!

Nextel is expanding in Vermont fairly quickly.I get service in Putney now which I never got before.Brattleboro has improved and gets excellent service.Some of the service extends into NH. Over the bridge. I-91 is improving with service on a regular basis.I haven't been up to the ski areas yet.If anyone has please post those findings for the winter.