Here's the problem: we went to a bluegrass festival in VT last weekend and our AT&T cell phones worked only sporadically. When we go to the Grey Fox festival in NY state, our cell phones do not work there either.

Those areas are fine if you have Verizon as your carrier, but other carriers seem to be blocked or extremely limited.

I was very unnerved all weekend being incommunicado, because of family responsibilities at home, but the issue became serious when we had a tire blowout on our camper on the ride home from VT. We sat by the side of the interstate for almost 3 hours waiting to get it fixed, because it took so long to summon help with our sporadic phone reception.

My plan is to get a cheap pay-as-you-go phone that works in the Verizon network for just such circumstances.

Tracphone seems to have a "service end date" which as far as I can tell only lasts for 60 days from the time of activation, and nothing on the package or website (that I can find) tells me whether it will work in Verizon territory. Other carriers seem to have "plans" which require you to sign up one way or another.

Anyone have any experience or advice for this particular problem?

P.S. And why the heck can't these carriers have reciprocal agreements?