Is cell phone reception, in the US, reliant on the cell phone
brand/type or the cellular provider?  If it is the cell phone itself,
which is the best for reception? If it is the provider, is the
contract with the provider solid if the reception is poor?  Lastly do
external antennas work?

Hi,

Unfortunately I cannot tell you how those things work in the US, but I
do have some experience with the issue here and based on comments of
experts in the industry (who told me this on the condition of
anonymity) both reasons can cause connection problems, or actually
three.
Competing providers of telecommunication services will incidentally
cause connection problems - in China we have seen wars between
providers on a local level who would cut each others cables. Second,
the base stations they use can be provided by different international
hardware providers. When you move from one 'area' to another,
connections might be lost. The companies will never admit this in
public, but they have not interest in improving the connections with
their competitor. Same happens then also in the connections between
base stations and mobile phones.
Sometimes you actually wonder whether competition is always a good
idea.

Wife and I are on our 3d cell phone and third cell phone provider. We
were spending $15 per month incuding one time costs prorated for very
few long distance and modest local minutes. Our Verizon Kyocea (no
model number shown) will cost us about $1000 over the 24 month
contract, even if we are disatisfied. It is rarely possible to get out
of a cellphone contract even if service is poor. Actually it is a
$4000 contract with 4 phones so our son-in-law will be mad at us if we
don't pay our share $43 per month. I heard on the Clark Howard radio
show that a cost increase may hit us, but I don't know the details
except nearly all cell phones will be affected.
 So far the performance is better and we can make more long distance
calls than we care to at no extra cost.   Neil

If cellphone towers were an average of 50KM apart, 20,000 of them
would be needed to cover 5000 KM by 10,000 KM which would cover North
America except off shore islands. Generally all cities, most towns,
and heavily traveled roads have cellphone service. Isolated low
population densities often are not covered by any of the competing
providers even with the best external antenna. The best directional
antennas can change very bad performance to excellent reception. The
ommi directional external antennas are easier to use, often smaller,
but only help a little. Any kind of external antenna can reduces body
exposure to the several watts of RF from a cell phone when you talk on
it. There is some thinking that the next generation of cellphones may
produce about 10 watts of RF making brain tumors, headaches and
dis-orientation likely. Expert opinion varies on whether the present
power is significantly hazardous for persons who talk with a cell
phone next to their brain several hours per month. Some homes and
buildings are bad for cellphone reception. A directional external
antenna likely would help but your boss etc may object. Proper aiming
of a directional antenna may be difficult and counter-intuitive inside
a building of any kind.   Neil

A government or corporation that really cares about cell phone users
could provide a superior manopoly, but typically government is worse
than free enterprise and competion for all purposes, except perhaps
national defence and a manned mission to Mars.
 I am not aware of any cable cutting or other direct sabotage in the
USA. Non-compatability is partly subborness, but mostly rapidly
improving technology. Making sure it is compatable with older
technology typically degrades the improvement and increases the cost
of both the new cell phones and the new cell phone towers.   Neil

There isn’t one factor that determines the best cellular service in
the US however one of the primary factors would be the carrier.
Currently, Verizon Wireless has the most widespread coverage. Their
network is based on the CDMA technology
(http://www.qualcomm.com/cdma/). T-Mobile utilizes the same technology
as the rest of the world (GSM) however here in the US it is primarily
in more populated areas. GSM is growing though in the US every day.
AT&T Wireless and Cingular are both migrating to GSM and have roaming
agreements already in place with T-Mobile. One could conclude that it
will eventually be as widespread as CDMA.

Having the most widespread coverage though and doesn’t necessarily
mean one carrier is better than the other.

Some other factors which impact reception are:

Terrain:
Things like mountains and structures (buildings, power lines) play a
role in how well the reception is in your area. Since a carrier
invests a large some of time & money into placement of a tower, it
makes sense place it in an area where they will get the best return.

Type of Phone:
Each carrier has different models of phones to choose from. Usually
they range from the basic phone to the very advanced. The ability to
receive a signal will vary slightly from phone to phone but in my
opinion as long as you have a current model phone all things are
pretty much equal.

Hope this helps…