Out of Town? Make Sure You are Covered!

Not too many years ago, going out of town meant you were going "off radar", with only the occasional pay phone offering any sort of connectivity (and then only if you had the correct change). Today's wayfarers have different expectations, with almost 20 years' worth of conditioning to the availability and use of cell phones. Improvements in coverage areas have made it so that people now expect their phones to work even in a lead-lined Gamma ray test vault buried three and a half miles beneath Area 51.

Dead Spots, Hot Spots

Despite the best efforts of engineers and technicians, there are clearly going to be "dead spots" out there, which is something that still plagues many towns in Alaska. For the most part, though, there are enough cell phone towers around that "hot spots" exist even in some of the most rural settings. Often, it is a matter of driving over or around a hill or a ridge. A few years ago, a Phoenix-area man who suffered a breakdown outside the small mining town of Globe, Arizona found reception - once he had completed the arduous hike to the top of a mountain.

A Long Way Down

Another recent (and nearly tragic) news story in Southern California tells of a 68-year old man's car plummeting 200 feet down a roadside ravine in between Los Angeles and Ventura Counties. He had a cell phone with him, of course, but it got lost as he tumbled down the hillside. However, the police were able to give his family his last approximate location based on the calls he had made on his cell phone. After two painful days at the bottom of a canyon (near another unfortunate motorist's wreckage), the man was rescued, because his family had a good idea of where to look.

The moral of both of those stories is that you should always take your payg cell phone with you when you go out of town, and if you travel frequently, you may want to consider a service provider that provides the most expansive coverage possible. Even with roaming charges, a few extra dollars each month could give you far more value than anything else money could ever buy.