Where I used to live, the POTS lines were on separate poles from the power lines in a lot of areas, and the phone lines were far and away more robust than the p

Where I used to live, the POTS lines were on separate poles from the power lines in a lot of areas, and the phone lines were far and away more robust than the power lines. During the winter, snow would routinely take out the power in huge areas, sometimes for two weeks or longer, but you could still use the phone if you had a basic trimline model (which everybody kept one around for these situations) into the jack.