We also live in a rural area with bad cell coverage. The best up here appears to be Verizon...but...from our neighbors, it too can be spotty. We have Tmobile-Sprint and can get a bar or 2 on the roof and a mile down the road. We use it only because we share an account with family; makes it reasonable. In the city, no problems. To mitigate the poor signals here we also have a land line....but definitely no bargain!!

Drive around to all the cell phone towers within about a 6 mile radius of your house. Take note of whose antennas/equipment are on them and map out which is closest and which has the best line-of-sight to your house. Pay attention to which direction the antennas face, with respect to your house.

That's where I'd start.

If all you want is phone service on the go, Tracfone was suggested above, I think they use Verizon towers and are lower cost if you don’t need internet.

I think you are completely missing the point of retirement. People were just fine before cell phones. You might need you own dedicated land line, but a party line might work just fine too.

You can always go down to the library to hop on PPOT to let us know you are still enjoying retirement. Or better yet, write a letter, mail it to one of us and we can post the great news!

I have Tracfone...I use the internet on it every day.
It's by far the cheapest way to go.
Their service has changed over the last few years....for the better.

I have Verizon too and refuse to change it even the others cost much less. This is for your shop or home? Call them, complain and demand they send a signal booster. I have no signal at my home. Its a hole within their coverage and 3-4 houses are affected to the north and south of me. The extender fixed that. I have 4-5 bars 24/7.

We went the same route with Verizon. We are in a similar blank spot in their coverage.
They gave us the booster and we have had good signal since then. They actually suggested it.

After 15 years we switched from AT&T to Verizon for better coverage and we don’t live in the sticks. Big mistake. Seems 50% of the time I have 2 bars. Internet is agonizingly slow or inoperable.