My experience:  4 years same house great reception.  Last year I upgraded to a new phone, dropped unlimited data, got back on Verizon's straight and narrow non-black-sheep plans.  14 months later, 8-9 network tickets later, and 4 replacement phones to include 4 new SIM cards and one network extender later, they tell me to try another carrier and no ETF.  I am trying to stay with Verizon due to great rural coverage, but they tell me I am in a fringe area with poor 3G and voice and strong 4G data and I live in an XLTE area but get 1-2MB download speeds.  Boost Mobile only goes to 8MBps and was spanking my XLTE.  Yeah, I dont understand that either.  So, long story short:  You have to literally kill hours on the phone and in store and on chat, reset phones many times, wait for replacements and generally make them hate you more than you hate them.  It isn't worth the fight to get out with no ETF.  If it isn't working for you, cut loose, sell your phone after paying the ETF, make some cash back there and use it on your new phone at the new carrier or use it to pay the ETF if that carrier doesnt buy out the ETF.