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If you follow me on any of networks, you know that @mindlessfluff and I spent a good part of the last week driving from Emeryville CA to Slater IA. He drove, I rode. The plan was that I would work as we went along. At the same time, I would tweet and blog about the trip. Great plan, huh? Too bad it don’t work out that way…

There is one big reason that I didn’t tweet as frequently as I planned, let alone blog the trip: Sprint’s lack of mobile and data coverage.

We have been loyal Sprint customers for MANY years – more than a decade on the mobile side alone. Usually we are quite happy with the service we get. We may not like how much it costs us for the service, but it usually just works. Last week was the exception that may cause us to change providers.

We drove across I-80 to get from the west edge of the US to the middle of the country. From Reno through the eastern side of Nebraska, we had little to no mobile coverage. While on the road, we were in roaming mode from late Tuesday morning until mid-afternoon Thursday. When we stopped overnight on Tuesday night, we did have coverage at the hotel. Wednesday night, not so much. Roaming mode at the hotel in Sidney, Wyoming on Wednesday night sucked.

Coverage here in rural Iowa is better than it was as we drove I-80 (and it isn’t great here). At least here, I can connect. My phone works most of the time, even if other phones on our account don’t always.

Sprint, in this day and age, this isn’t acceptable. If there is an interstate, I should have coverage. No ifs, ands or buts. I shouldn’t have to go two full days of driving to get out of the roaming zone. I shouldn’t have to totally disconnect just because you haven’t gotten around to building a tower.

That’s just my two cents.