How do I research coverage/quality of the wireless networks in my area? (I live in Iowa City, Iowa, but I often drive to rural northeastern Iowa which is dominated by U.S. Cellular, a CDMA network.)
I currently have Verizon, but I feel no loyalty to them. In 2007, just a few months after I bought an expensive Motorola A840 for $400, they made some kind of change to the not-work that caused horrid problems in using my Motorola. I'd be on a call, and suddenly I could no longer hear the other person. The other person could hear me ok, but I couldn't hear them. This would continue for 30-60 seconds, and then suddenly the other person would come back, just fine. I placed more than 7-8 service calls to Verizon over the past year and a half. They sent a guy out to scan my house for possible interference (there was none), they told me I was imagining it, they told me to take my phone to a Verizon office for a firmware upgrade (I did, and it didn't solve the problem),they blamed my phone (which had been fine for the first few months, and also the problem arose on my husband's LG phone at the same time it arose on my Motorola).
My expensive Motorola phone has been horrid, especially with respect to problems charging it and battery life. I've had 3 different batteries in it over the year and a half I've owned it, and once again the current battery is failing to hold a charge. I've also had to replace the charger.
So I want to get rid of the awful Motorola phone and move to a PDA/phone. I'm willing to change carriers because of the many problems I had with Verizon changing their network and providing poor customer service afterward, but the key question is whether other carriers are better than Verizon or not.
How do I go about researching the quality of the carriers in Iowa City and northeast Iowa? How do I find out who's good and who's horrible?
Question. Who has the most subscribers in that area? How rural of an area is it? Chances are, if there are really no cellular towers close by, you will have pretty bad coverage.
How do I research network coverage / quality? 
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