After our Verizon contract expired, we dumped them and switched to TracFone pre-paid. I think they run off the US Cellular towers, but in any case, they work great. In some signal-challenged areas such as Melvin Village and Madison we actually get a better signal than we did with Verizon. Our company is saving a TON of money after the switch. We don't use any texting and we're low volume callers, though. You can buy a TracFone for next to nothing at any WalMart and buy only the amount of minutes you actually need. You can also buy phones and minutes online
http://www.tracfone.com