Does anybody have any insight into phone service in Vilseck, Germany?

I'm stationed here in Vilseck too. The post is very small, about 2.2 miles from gate to gate. To help with your questions:
1. Phone service here is shit. Period. Personally, my advice is to have your phone unlocked and use international plan. You can buy a $25 burner phone here and upload minutes for great reception and use it for work/field training if you want. A lot of us do. Also, What's App is damn near a mandatory thing. It's how we communicate for free rather than massaging fees. Your sponsor will likely communicate more if you contact that way, which is ridiculous but true.
2. Reserving a room in Vilseck is your best bet. Especially since you won't have transportation for a while. It's getting cold and bus schedule is reliable but a pain when traveling to and from. If you will contact me I can get your pertinent info and take care of that for you. It will at least ensure you have a place when you get here.

Are you married? Dependents? Report date? Do you have orders already? It sucks your sponsor isn't great, but I'll help you out. Hopefully you are flying into Ramstein. They will give you a hotel room overnight and bus you to Grafenwoehr the following day where your sponsor should meet you to pick you up. If you already have orders I can get you a post office box so that you can send a package forward with a few necessities to be waiting for you when you arrive.

So I will tell you that the phone companies when I was there were Vodafone and T-Mobile. Neither one was good. Try to do some research before you commit to anything. The hotel reservation depends on what unit you're going. If you're going to 2CR I would make it in Vilseck if not do it in Graf. Vilseck is small enough that if you need to go anywhere you can walk. Good Luck, have fun and travel as much as you can while you there.

I was stationed in Vilseck from 2003-08 and I got a cell phone off base. If your current carrier has an international plan, I would sign up for it if you don’t wanna purchase a cell phone in Germany. You can stay at the Kristall Inn on Vilseck. Always purchase foreign currency from an off post bank/ATM.