From Fond Du Lac county northward Alltel has excellent coverage and for the most part coverage is equal to US Cellular providing a 4 to 5 bar signal in most places. In places such as Ripon, and Berlin they are the only provider providing wireless broadband coverage. Their only drawback is with off network coverage. If you travel to Milwaukee be aware as Alltel uses Sprint for roaming which provides a lower quality of coverage then you would receive from US Cellular

Coverage is excellent 4 to 5 bars in most places traveled US Cellular and Alltel are the best in the area though USCC has an advantage as Alltels on network coverage ends 10 miles south of Fond Du Lac and you are then roaming on the Sprint network where US Cellular have their own coverage all the way to Chicago and beyond.

T-Mobile has no service of their own anywhere from Fond Du Lac county northward in the state of Wisconsin. T-Mobile customers traveling in these areas use Einstein PCS, IWireless, and in areas where they are the only choice AT&T.

If you are looking at service from AT&T and travel or live west of Fond Du Lac and Oshkosh in places such as Ripon, Green Lake, and Berlin be aware. Once you get a few miles out of Fond Du Lac or Oshkosh AT&T looses signal and even though your phone continues to display AT&T you are actually roaming either on Einstein PCS, or IWireless depending on the area traveled. If you live or spend considerable amounts of time in these areas and are looking for a wireless provider I would look elsewhere.

Alltell offers best plan coverage of any carrier in Wisconsin I know of. Coverage is mostly good, but this is a rural area so there are weak spots out in the country if your phone is not hooked to an outside antenna. Altell has towers in Ripon, Green Lake, Princeton, Berlin, Rosendale. I think they now have tower in Picket, which used to be a weak spot. Alltel plans cover most of Wisconsin as home area, with only a small part in the northwest part of state not covered as home. Having had Altell for last few years I would say their coverage in this area is very good considering that this is not metropolitan area.

Its hard to rate Cingular in Ripon, since they have no native service and instead roam on Einstein PCS. The call quality is great, but Einstein offers no internet features whatsoever, so you can forget GPRS here. Anywhere in town outside you will easily get a maximum signal, but as soon as you step inside, it either greatly decreases or dies completely. In the college dorms, certain sides of the buildings get a fine signal while the other is a complete GSM dead zone. In non-cinderblock buildings you will have a better time, but still don't expect much. I can also comment on other providers here. T-Mobile is in the same boat as Cingular, so my comments apply to them too. Verizon roams onto US Cellular, which works well everywhere, but offers no internet service and sometimes calls will go straight to voicemail without ringing (my friend with Verizon has this happen pretty often). The other services I can't really comment too much on, but I believe Sprint put up a tower here in the last year or so. Cingular's coverage map shows that they are expanding in this area of Fond Du Lac county, but with no time on when that will happen. I am still optimistic, as I think that would help with the building penetration problems.