Verizon phone service in Havasu is great. Yes it is on Mohave wireless's network because they won't release rights to Verizon to build their own. But the phones work everywhere including all of the water. Nextel was great in town (sucked in California) and only worked on the water near town. If your Verizon phone isn't working out there you need to do the star eighty something send dealio to update your network settings. The only drawback is your phone goes into roam mode (you are not charged extra) so you have to dial your phone # instead of *86 to get your voicemail.
Now the wireless cards for the laptops do not work. Those don't work on that network so unless you can somehow get a good enough signal from the tower across the lake in California you are going to need a Sprint or Nextel Card.
I have had Verizon for years, and have lived in Havasu now for around 7 mos. The Verizon service always worked well for me (although you couldn't use the Verizon features such as *228, and *86). Lately though, the service was getting worse and worse, and I had trouble connecting and recieving calls. I contacted Verizon, to see if they could trouble shoot my problems, and after going through customer service, tech 1 support, and tech 2 support, they told me that the Mohave Wireless cell site was working near capacity, and my cell service from this point on would be spotty at best. They then suggested that I find another provider, and that they would wave my early cancellation fee.
So, I now have Sprint (which works very good here in Havasu), and don't know how well customers with Verizon will do out here in the future. Possibly the Mohave cell site will increase capacity, and that will help, as Verizon told me that they didn't have any future plans to add their own cell site out here.