WOW... Think I'm going to talk to some of the people around my favourite biking route. I live in an, at one time, small town, Bastrop Tx that's 35 miles east of Austin Tx. The only reason allot of people out here use AT&T is because when you get more than a few miles form the main HWY signal strength drops or is lost with the other carriers.

I'm after a small cheap phone that can message when I'm on the back roads.

Oddly I talked to a rancher last month that was working his fence along a beautiful back road I take next to the State Park. He pulled out an old beat up Nokia to receive a call. After asking about it he said yep... This is the only one that works out here and continued about his business. (at least he did'nt pull out a Brick)

I'm sure these things change depending on what part of the world your ridding in. I heard Verison is the better carrier on the East Coast.

I'm not a crazy rider but once I bent a front wheel in a rut on the back roads. A local drove me to the HWY so I could make a call.

Out in the Pan Handel of Texas people still use GSM networks.

Things of course are changing. 4GLTE and soon 5G... Seems the more Gs the less distance you can be from a signal tower...

It seems that TracFone: Uses AT&T on most Motorola phones, T-Mobile on most LG phones, Verizon Wireless or U.S. Cellular on most phones without SIM cards, as well as Sprint. I'm gonna check it out an post my results.