In the part of Tampa Bay Florida where I live, Verizon Wireless is one of the worst carriers to use. Text and multimedia messaging work fine, but for voice calls, forget it. Dropped calls are common, and when it doesn’t drop, a voice call is choppy at best; the sound is similar to someone jiggling a headphone connector where the signal breaks in and out.

Note that I said "in the part of Tampa Bay..", because not all of the region is like that. In some parts, VZW is a-okay, but in my part – which is very close to the city mind you – nope.

AT&T wireless on the other hand works flawlessly here. All messaging works great, all voice works great. No complaints there.

I guarantee however that for some who read this, the result is the exact opposite where VZW is the one that works right and AT&T isn’t.

The point is that It’s a total crapshoot depending where you are in the US as to whether a particular wireless network will work properly or not, no matter what any coverage map states.

How do you (mostly) guarantee good voice calls on mobile when traveling to other parts of the US?

If you find that you can’t connect a good voice call with your existing wireless phone when in far-away locations (such as when on vacation a few states away), it’s actually not a bad idea to buy a throwaway phone at the destination.

Yes, it’s true, you will be taking your existing phone with you, and yes, carrying around an extra phone is annoying – but that inconvenience is worth it for clear voice calls.

The reason I put ‘at the destination’ in bold is because to make this work, you don’t buy a phone in your local area, but rather at the place where you traveled to. This is because those who sell prepaid phones obviously won’t sell ones that can’t connect to the network locally, so you know up front whatever carrier the throwaway phone is using will work, will connect, will get a strong signal and will make for proper voice calls.

Here’s an example situation:

You live in Virginia and go to Las Vegas, Nevada on vacation. In Las Vegas, you notice your wireless phone has poor signal and there’s basically no way to place a voice call from it because of that. You know that you’re going to need a wireless phone that can make voice calls because you don’t want to run to the hotel or a payphone (if you can find one) every time you need to call someone.

It’s at this point where it would be wise to run over to the nearest local Radio Shack in Vegas, plunk down 10 bucks and buy a throwaway cell phone. It doesn’t matter what carrier is used or who makes the handset as long as it can acquire a strong signal and make proper voice calls. Once activated, you can text the temporary number you’re using from your barely-got-a-signal phone to the person you want to call and tell them to expect that number when you call them.

After you leave NV and head for home, keep the phone or toss it. Your choice.

Smartphones don’t always have the advantage

Some of you after reading the above may think, "Well, I could just use my smartphone, find a wi-fi hotspot, connect a call through the internet and that would work." That’s not necessarily true as wi-fi hotspots aren’t exactly known for having fast networks, so you may encounter the same exact problem you did when on the wireless network, meaning dropped calls. There’s also the concern you may not even be able to find a hotspot depending on where you are.

Using a cheap throwaway phone at the destination, while not an elegant solution by any means, does allow you to make voice calls without saying "What? WHAT?! HUH?!" every 5 seconds. Worth the 10 bucks? Yes.

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