That all said, I still am of the opinion that folks tend to be more forgiving of network problems if the customer care, pricing, and overall quality of their experience as a customer with a carrier is good.

I personally believe that all four national providers (don't know much about regional carriers) provide good solid networks and fairly priced plans. The nitty-gritty of it all comes down to how the four companies treat their customers. T-Mobile and Verizon treat theirs top-notch, and it shows.

Sprint and AT&T, have poor customer service, and nobody likes to get the runaround. This is why Sprint is having trouble and why AT&T, though large, fails to convince anyone they provide a better network.

If you don't get treated well, you tend to notice other problems more, like dropped calls, no service, etc. Where I live, Verizon has relatively poor coverage, and people who use them drop calls like everybody else does.

But the people who have Verizon still love it, and don't seem to mind as much. Let's face it, the last thing you want to happen is to spend two hours on the phone arguing with customer service because they screwed up your bill, yet again, only to be using your cellphone not much later, and drop a call. That dropped call becomes HUGE after an ordeal like this.

This is why I think Verizon and T-Mobile get the edge when comparing networks in those consumer surveys.