So that was the taildragger doing 40 on US-7! ;-)

Glad to see someone finally put the lie to the operators. The situation has actually been devolving since ~2011. 600 lb gorilla Verizon used the passage of TS Irene to break interop contracts with the smaller operators. The ensuing dead zones eroded the minor's customer base to the point it wasn't worth it anymore. e.g. Sprint's response was to simply shut down transmitters instead up upgrading to 4G.