Tracfone came into the Missouri markets late, and doesn't have towers in a lot of the areas. Down around Springfield/Branson, the best coverage is offered by US Cellular, I believe; as you get closer to the eastern side of the state, Verizon and Cingular are best.
Also the kind of phone you get (brand and model) makes a huge difference in rural areas (central and southern Missouri, anywhere outside the large cities in Kansas, eastern Colorado, southern Illinois, etc., etc.). If you spend a lot of time in those areas, you need a dual or tri-mode phone (one that supports an analog signal). There are still a lot of areas that do not have digital towers of any sort; if you have one of the fancy new 'All-Digital' phones that everyone pushes these days and you happen to end up in one of those digital-dead zones, your phone will cease to work (no signal) until you get within range of a digital tower again.
Having spent far too much time making multiple trips across Kansas, I can tell you with some certainty just where that digital divide is. It's getting smaller (more towers going up), but it hasn't entirely gone away. Verizon and I came to an agreement some years ago; they promised to tell me when Kansas is entirely digital, and I promised to buy tri-mode phones until they do.
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Also the kind of phone you get (brand and model) makes a huge difference in rural areas (central and southern Missouri, anywhere outside the large cities in Kansas, eastern Colorado, southern Illinois, etc., etc.). If you spend a lot of time in those areas, you need a dual or tri-mode phone (one that supports an analog signal). There are still a lot of areas that do not have digital towers of any sort; if you have one of the fancy new 'All-Digital' phones that everyone pushes these days and you happen to end up in one of those digital-dead zones, your phone will cease to work (no signal) until you get within range of a digital tower again.
Having spent far too much time making multiple trips across Kansas, I can tell you with some certainty just where that digital divide is. It's getting smaller (more towers going up), but it hasn't entirely gone away. Verizon and I came to an agreement some years ago; they promised to tell me when Kansas is entirely digital, and I promised to buy tri-mode phones until they do.