I am in San Francisco and travel throughout the Bay Area. I use Sprint for my cell phone AND I have separate Sprint EVDO service to deliver WiFi to my MacBook Pro (via an ExpressCard/34). I have to say my Sprint coverage has been near-perfect, a complete non-issue.

With the cell phone (a Samsung SPH-M610, which I really like), no dropped calls that I can think of. Clear signals everywhere I've gone throughout the Bay Area (other than in SF's underground MUNI system where, to my knowledge, NOBODY can get a signal). Completely reliable.

With the EVDO card, I consistently get respectable WiFi speed, approaches the speed of an entry level DSL account (a quantum leap better than dialup). Although expensive at $60/month (and that is just for the EVDO, no cell phone service), I am happy to have it--makes train commuting a pleasure--and would describe the connection as actually usable, even for streaming video and downloading big files.

All that said, I have to admit I am about to jump ship to ATT for my cell phone account. Yeah, I am finally going iPhone which, as everybody knows, is an ATT exclusive. Sadly (from a budget perspective) I can't also drop the Sprint EVDO account as ATT does not have any kind of iPhone-to-laptop tethering option, nor would I want to use such even if it did exist--the Sprint EVDO card is an ideal form factor: fits inside the MBP, does not require its own battery power and does so without dramatically reducing the MBP battery life).

As I prepare to switch, I have an iPhone 3G "on trial" (i.e., new account but can cancel within the first 30 days) and have been testing it now since mid-January. Comparing ATT cell coverage to Sprint, for my specific geographic travels, the Sprint coverage wins, hands down. However, that is only because my apartment is apparently in some kind of Bermuda Triangle of poor ATT coverage; despite the ATT coverage map showing I should be getting great signal, I do not. Nonetheless, I really want to make the iPhone work. So, for that purpose, I have just taken delivery on a zBoost Cell Phone Signal Extender (YX510-PCS-CEL "Dual Band", Amazon, $292) and am assuming it will fill in the signal holes for my apartment. I should know by tonight for sure.

Anyway, that's my experience. Keep in mind this is just one data point based on my very specific geographic travels, YMMV.

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