I live in the St. Louis area and have had Tracphone/Nokia, TMobile/Motorola, and currently ATT/SonyEricson.

I liked my Tracphone, but when we traveled out of state we had problems with it in some areas of the country.

I loved the TMobile service in this area and the Motorola, but my daughter buys my phone and service and wanted to switch to ATT because of the rollover minutes.

The ATT part is okay, but the SonyEricson phone is lousy. I'm looking for a different phone now. I'm partially deaf and the sound quality and volume on my current phone leaves a lot to be desired. I went to an ATT store and looked at the phones and I was surprised that they really couldn't advise me on the sound volume and quality of the phones they sell. I'm going to try a different ATT store next week and see if I have better luck.

So do ask people that live in your area what they say works best for where you are. Particularly your neighbors and co-workers because they frequent the same general areas that you do.