I've not had much luck with texting from the Sierra. On two occasions I've texted my wife that I've reached the summit of Whitney, only to find the msgs still in my Outbox several days later, so I no longer bother. I have AT&T, and while I can get a signal in some places, it's not strong enough for voice. People report better luck with Verizon. I presumed that cell phones continued to re-try sending texts, but apparently the number of retries is limited. Also, in some areas (like Trona) the cell service will only work with Verizon.
I would like to see the costs of such a system. There are many unmet needs for repairing our existing infrastructure. We might need to re-invest in those first before adding new.
