I used to have Sprint, but switched to Verizon in 2013 because they had poor coverage in the Twin Cities, and no coverage in outstate Minnesota. Now I want to switch back because of cost, but I'd like to get an accurate idea of the coverage.
But what if Sprint had an app where its customers could apply to become Network Advocates and after passing some requirements, could get forwarded requests to demonstrate network and modern device.
In return, they'd receive like $10 or a credit on their bill. It could be a way for a savvy young consumer to basically get free Sprint service in exchange for the powerful new advertising.
Honestly, probably easier to just send a SIM card to people with $5 credit on it.
Similar things can happen with cable too: A lot of people in my hometown rave about Charter's speeds, but in my subdivision, nobody uses them: There is packet loss, outages... so the entire neighborhood ends up with UVerse, which, while far slower and more expensive, it actually works.
Of course, since they use crowdsourced data, they depend on people actually running their respective apps, so the lack of indicated coverage doesn't necessarily mean there's no coverage at a given location.
I work in Manhattan, where I've twice had the misfortune of occupying a cubicle in the exact center of a building. Both T-Mobile and AT&T report full coverage for the entire area, but the many micro dead spots in homes and offices can be a real problem. T-Mobile in particular licenses spectrum that can't penetrate walls as well as some other parts of the spectrum.
I'm sure there's a startup for providing user sourced coverage data at a very granular level, though it would be difficult to deal with the constant changes the carriers are making to their networks.