OK, I made sure the phone was set to LTE/CDMA.

And I disabled Advanced Calling.  (Because why would anyone want to use that?)

It's been a few weeks, and I can confidently say that I'm now experiencing fewer dropped calls.

But only fewer.  I still have no shortage of calls drop out, mid-sentence.  There are still conversations where I have to call them back several times in order to complete our discussion.

And the audio quality varies from "acceptable" to "barely understandable," with fluctuations occurring throughout the call, from moment to moment.

And it's certainly a good thing that I don't have to rely on this network for any sort of internet connectivity at my house -- it is utterly useless for such purposes.

So, thank you for your recommendations regading my phone... they did provide a slight improvement. 

Unfortunately, however, the root cause of this problem does not reside in my phone.  It is, instead, rooted in Verizon's failure, to date, to deploy adequate cell towers in my area.  I hope that this might change some day.

Thanks.