If you pop a zip code into AT&T coverage map found
here . You can see that outside a few hot areas, such as around the WLNH tower and a few spots coming up 93, all the other coverage is by 'partner' agreements. AT&T and Unicel use GSM, Verizon uses CDMA (Verizon bought Unicel in NH).
Your coverage on AT&T in these partner areas are dependent on being in range of a Unicel(Verizon) tower that still supports GSM.