I have a Tracfone also, and it's been pretty reliable... with one exception.

I made a trip to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, and there was no service in the town of Carlsbad. Nothing. The town uses some obscure phone company for its telephone service, and they wouldn't recognize me, perhaps.

Interestingly enough, my Tracfone worked perfectly at the campsite 50 miles away at the campsite in Guadalupe National Park. And that was in the middle of nowhere.

This is all great info. I am on my way to Target to find out about T-Mobile and compare.

I will post a report when I get home.

Check out Tracfone.com and T-mobile.com for coverage map. Tracfone basically only covers I-10, I-40 and I-25 in NM; while T-Mobile doesn't even cover I-40 east of Albuqueque. [T-Mobile's prepaid coverage map is significantly smaller than their post-paid.]

Tracfone used to offer analog phones, which may provide wider coverage in rural areas, but they've stopped selling them. I don't know if there are other analog prepaid services or not.