So far as I can tell, cell phone technology works best in third- or fourth- tier cities like Rochester, NY. The worst cities for cell phone coverage are cities like LA, NYC, Washington DC, etc.

In very dense areas they have to put in more cells, deal with the fact that there is a lot of metal around, multi-path propagation, more difficulties getting towers sited, etc.

In rural areas I think the cost has more to do with topography than anything else. In a mostly flat area that has an occasional mountain that's taller than anyone else, you can space towers far apart. In the Appalachian mountain region, however, you have a network of ridges that are all about the same height, so you'd need to run power and fiber to the tops of all the ridges - you might as well just run FTTH to all the homes, except you couldn't charge $10 a GB for FTTH.

No it wouldn't, because that's not the only area your plan covers. We all acknowledge that we are averse to limits of any kind (hence unlimited calling, even if we only ever use a couple hours a month!), and that includes area restrictions.

Imagine if your cell phone required that you pay some outrageous roaming fee or get a special temporary pre-paid package if you drove out of NYC into NJ.

Edit: Typo.

I would take an LA only plan if it were cheap. I think a lot of people would. And why do roaming fees have to be outrageous? How about reasonable ones?

Or driving from Seattle to say, Vancouver, BC? That would be crazy if you had to pay a roaming fee.