People will have better luck with rural telephone companies trying to stay alive then big wireless carriers. Sprint and T-Mobile absolutely suck in coverage area for rural folks.

One example, Steele ND and the surrounding area is served by a small rural telephone company that is laying a lot of fibre (I'm hoping they head North). A 200M plan (no cap) for $45 a month. This is being repeated quite a lot in rural areas with rural cooperatives.

I usually think of where I live as rural due to the distance to a major city (20 miles to Athens, GA), but I do get occasional 4G inside the grocery store. It's more exurban than rural.

Living in the midwest, when you're 10 minutes outside of a major city, you're lucky to get spoty 3G. After 20 minutes you're lucky to get any signal.