it might depend on what part of the country you're in. I've had T-Mobile literally my whole cell-phone-using life (still on the family plan, and my family isn't really the "shop around" type), so since ~2003. I've lived in the Twin Cities, central Pennsylvania, and now Tulsa, and I've never had serious coverage issues, other than the occasional travel to very rural locations and/or inside my office building (which are both situations in which most people around me didn't have coverage, regardless of carrier). I haven't really dealt with customer service, so no comment there.