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Uh-oh! Someone brought out the red letters. 
When I originally choose Verizon (Air Touch) as my cell carrier it was because they had the biggest footprint for coverage and had an agreement with Alltel that allowed me to use Alltel's towers where my family lived. Air Touch merged into Verizon and my coverage either didn't change or it improved. Fast forward to November 2009 I purchased my first smartphone, a HTC Droid Eris. I considered the Motorola Droid, but I didn't need the keyboard. Still, don't in fact. Nowdays the Eris is a bit long in the tooth. I still enjoyed using it. In the meantime, I learned more about this "Trust Market" of Verizon that I was in. The towers and customer accounts had been sold to AT&T per the requirements of the FCC approval to the Verizon/Alltel merger. So here I am on a cell carrier where I get the coverage I need and phone I want to use. Because of the technology differences I got a new phone from AT&T and my cell service was transitioned from Verizon to AT&T. According to the website AT&T setup for the customers in this transition, the coverage will be similar to what I had with Verizon. However, AT&T failed in this respect. The phone (HTC Aria) I received from AT&T is a nice little phone, not the newest thing in the world, but it compared evenly to the Eris. When I learned and realized that the network AT&T delivered was not going to work, I looked at possibility of purchasing a new phone from Verizon or reactiving the Eris. The other cell carriers in the area don't quite cover where I need it to. The choices from Verizon I considered were the Droid X, Droid 2 Global, and the Thunderbolt. I don't have 4G LTE here, yet, so that was a minus for the Thunderbolt. The global option was a bonus, but not needed for me. The Droid X and the D2G both had Blur. Everytime I would test it out in the store, I would always be disappointed or meh in my feelings towards the UI. In the end all would have met my needs so I went with the one I felt most comfortable with. While there will be more devices coming in the next few months, I will still be happy with the Thunderbolt or the Eris. Maybe when my contract is up I will look again at another carrier, but until then I say Verizon is my preferred choice and I can say "I gave AT&T a chance, but they couldn't deliver the network."
When I originally choose Verizon (Air Touch) as my cell carrier it was because they had the biggest footprint for coverage and had an agreement with Alltel that allowed me to use Alltel's towers where my family lived. Air Touch merged into Verizon and my coverage either didn't change or it improved. Fast forward to November 2009 I purchased my first smartphone, a HTC Droid Eris. I considered the Motorola Droid, but I didn't need the keyboard. Still, don't in fact. Nowdays the Eris is a bit long in the tooth. I still enjoyed using it. In the meantime, I learned more about this "Trust Market" of Verizon that I was in. The towers and customer accounts had been sold to AT&T per the requirements of the FCC approval to the Verizon/Alltel merger. So here I am on a cell carrier where I get the coverage I need and phone I want to use. Because of the technology differences I got a new phone from AT&T and my cell service was transitioned from Verizon to AT&T. According to the website AT&T setup for the customers in this transition, the coverage will be similar to what I had with Verizon. However, AT&T failed in this respect. The phone (HTC Aria) I received from AT&T is a nice little phone, not the newest thing in the world, but it compared evenly to the Eris. When I learned and realized that the network AT&T delivered was not going to work, I looked at possibility of purchasing a new phone from Verizon or reactiving the Eris. The other cell carriers in the area don't quite cover where I need it to. The choices from Verizon I considered were the Droid X, Droid 2 Global, and the Thunderbolt. I don't have 4G LTE here, yet, so that was a minus for the Thunderbolt. The global option was a bonus, but not needed for me. The Droid X and the D2G both had Blur. Everytime I would test it out in the store, I would always be disappointed or meh in my feelings towards the UI. In the end all would have met my needs so I went with the one I felt most comfortable with. While there will be more devices coming in the next few months, I will still be happy with the Thunderbolt or the Eris. Maybe when my contract is up I will look again at another carrier, but until then I say Verizon is my preferred choice and I can say "I gave AT&T a chance, but they couldn't deliver the network."