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> That used to be a problem, but by now cell phones are just as useful in emergency scenarios. It is much less of a problem then it used to be, but cell phones

> That used to be a problem, but by now cell phones are just as useful in emergency scenarios. It is much less of a problem then it used to be, but cell phones haven't reached 100% parity with landlines. Consider: 1. Cell phones require reception. At my house, cell reception is universally awful for all providers. I may not be able to even make a call to 911 on a cell phone and, if I do, I am not sure I can trust the reliability of e911. Work arounds include in-home Wi-Fi and femtocells, but... 2. Cell phones require power. In a prolonged power outage (or in the case of my daughter, even a five minute one), I can't gaurantee there will even be a working cell phone on the premises. Wi-Fi won't work, and the femtocell won't work, either. 3. Cell phones get misplaced. In an emergency will I even remember where in the house I set it down? That's not to say that cell phones don't also offer many advantages in an emergency. They do. Cell phones are usually available and usually close to a person. They can be turned on and hidden but still allow 911 operators to hear what is going on. There is usually about one cell phone per person, etc., etc. But, at my house at least, I can't completely forgo a landline (although I have at other locations in the past).

morgante 11y ago
> 1. Cell phones require reception. This is definitely a valid concern if it applies to you. My mother, for example, would never give up her landline because the reception at her house is definitely inferior to her landline. I, on the other hand, have consistently excellent reception. I think in general people who have good reception are the ones going land-line only. > 2. Cell phones require power. These days, so do many landlines (especially handheld/wireless ones). I could keep my phone charged for 48 hours of normal usage (backup batteries) and far longer if I went into power saving mode. > 3. Cell phones get misplaced. A cell phone is always on my person, whereas I would have to hunt down where the landline is. I guess there are tradeoffs to both, so I'm not comfortable saying you must have only one or the other.
- VLM 11y ago
  "A cell phone is always on my person" Its one of the defining social/cultural separations of our generation. Even inside families, my wife is a member of your camp and her phone is never out of her physical possession, ever, it even charges next to her in bed, whereas I'm in the other camp and I move my phone from charger to charger and only physically carry it when I'm going out for awhile or if I'm expecting a call. It has the virtue that in any group of people, there will always be at least one with the ankle bracelet ready for use in one second, even if the battery is nearly dead, and at least one with a fully charged phone a couple minutes away on its charger. So as a group you can get both instant response AND a full day of battery life.
hga 11y ago
Cell phones require power. In a prolonged power outage (or in the case of my daughter, even a five minute one), I can't gaurantee there will even be a working cell phone on the premises. Wi-Fi won't work, and the femtocell won't work, either. In my experience in a ice storm with long lasting effects, the days when all landlines were adequately powered from a central office are long gone. Your local box's smallish battery will run out no longer than a day or two (others in this discussion say 12 hours), at which time you're better off having a cell phone, which you can arrange to power in a variety of ways. And I'm appalled that after my mother switched to U-verse DSL, her home telecom is now powered through a UPS supplied by AT&T. If you take no preparations, though, you're better off with a landline. If you're paranoid like me and my family, you have both, I pay ~$12/month for a Consumer Cellular (AT&T MVNO that doesn't suck) candybar that stays off the air most of the time, and is priceless even at 25 cents/minute in emergencies.
- tacon 11y ago
  You can further minimize your cell phone backup costs with PTel.com, a T-Mobile MVNO, which costs $5/month (minimum spend) and $.05/minute. I had them for my (lightly used) cell service until recently, when I switched to Google's Project Fi, which opportunistically connects to either T-Mobile or Sprint, as needed. From a reliability standpoint, Project Fi might offer a bit more piece of mind with dual providers available, though it requires late model Nexus phones at the moment.
superuser2 11y ago
>2. Cell phones require power Land line != POTS line. Many landlines (including my own) are part of a Cable TV/Internet/Phone package and provided via your cable modem, which requires mains power from the house.
lsc 11y ago
>1. Cell phones require reception. At my house, cell reception is universally awful for all providers. I may not be able to even make a call to 911 on a cell phone and, if I do, I am not sure I can trust the reliability of e911. Work arounds include in-home Wi-Fi and femtocells, but... Another problem is the way cellphones are over-provisioned; last time I was in a (minor, no injuries, but noticeable) earthquake, I couldn't make calls for some time afterwards. This was back in the day, I was on a nokia communicator, which I mention because it had software such that I could send a text message, and it would keep retrying until it got through. I mention this because I was surprised to find that the behavior of the iphone is different. You have to manually retry.
Falkon1313 11y ago
> Cell phones require reception. This seems the biggest problem. While there's good reception at home, on vacation we went some places where there was no signal. That's worse than the days before cellphones were ubiquitous because payphones aren't around much anymore. > 2. Cell phones require power. In a prolonged power outage A prolonged power outage is one case where solar chargers and portable battery chargers come in really handy. They also work if you are somewhere away from outlets for awhile, while land lines don't. > 3. Cell phones get misplaced True, but the difference between one landline per house (single point of failure) vs many cellphones (one per person) makes up for that somewhat.
Frqy3 11y ago
FTTH also involves household powering for the connection to work. Even if a battery at the household end is supplied, will these be regularly tested and replaced when needed?

morgante 11y ago

> 1. Cell phones require reception. This is definitely a valid concern if it applies to you. My mother, for example, would never give up her landline because the reception at her house is definitely inferior to her landline. I, on the other hand, have consistently excellent reception. I think in general people who have good reception are the ones going land-line only. > 2. Cell phones require power. These days, so do many landlines (especially handheld/wireless ones). I could keep my phone charged for 48 hours of normal usage (backup batteries) and far longer if I went into power saving mode. > 3. Cell phones get misplaced. A cell phone is always on my person, whereas I would have to hunt down where the landline is. I guess there are tradeoffs to both, so I'm not comfortable saying you must have only one or the other.

VLM 11y ago
"A cell phone is always on my person" Its one of the defining social/cultural separations of our generation. Even inside families, my wife is a member of your camp and her phone is never out of her physical possession, ever, it even charges next to her in bed, whereas I'm in the other camp and I move my phone from charger to charger and only physically carry it when I'm going out for awhile or if I'm expecting a call. It has the virtue that in any group of people, there will always be at least one with the ankle bracelet ready for use in one second, even if the battery is nearly dead, and at least one with a fully charged phone a couple minutes away on its charger. So as a group you can get both instant response AND a full day of battery life.

hga 11y ago

Cell phones require power. In a prolonged power outage (or in the case of my daughter, even a five minute one), I can't gaurantee there will even be a working cell phone on the premises. Wi-Fi won't work, and the femtocell won't work, either. In my experience in a ice storm with long lasting effects, the days when all landlines were adequately powered from a central office are long gone. Your local box's smallish battery will run out no longer than a day or two (others in this discussion say 12 hours), at which time you're better off having a cell phone, which you can arrange to power in a variety of ways. And I'm appalled that after my mother switched to U-verse DSL, her home telecom is now powered through a UPS supplied by AT&T. If you take no preparations, though, you're better off with a landline. If you're paranoid like me and my family, you have both, I pay ~$12/month for a Consumer Cellular (AT&T MVNO that doesn't suck) candybar that stays off the air most of the time, and is priceless even at 25 cents/minute in emergencies.

tacon 11y ago
You can further minimize your cell phone backup costs with PTel.com, a T-Mobile MVNO, which costs $5/month (minimum spend) and $.05/minute. I had them for my (lightly used) cell service until recently, when I switched to Google's Project Fi, which opportunistically connects to either T-Mobile or Sprint, as needed. From a reliability standpoint, Project Fi might offer a bit more piece of mind with dual providers available, though it requires late model Nexus phones at the moment.

superuser2 11y ago

>2. Cell phones require power Land line != POTS line. Many landlines (including my own) are part of a Cable TV/Internet/Phone package and provided via your cable modem, which requires mains power from the house.

lsc 11y ago

>1. Cell phones require reception. At my house, cell reception is universally awful for all providers. I may not be able to even make a call to 911 on a cell phone and, if I do, I am not sure I can trust the reliability of e911. Work arounds include in-home Wi-Fi and femtocells, but... Another problem is the way cellphones are over-provisioned; last time I was in a (minor, no injuries, but noticeable) earthquake, I couldn't make calls for some time afterwards. This was back in the day, I was on a nokia communicator, which I mention because it had software such that I could send a text message, and it would keep retrying until it got through. I mention this because I was surprised to find that the behavior of the iphone is different. You have to manually retry.

Falkon1313 11y ago

> Cell phones require reception. This seems the biggest problem. While there's good reception at home, on vacation we went some places where there was no signal. That's worse than the days before cellphones were ubiquitous because payphones aren't around much anymore. > 2. Cell phones require power. In a prolonged power outage A prolonged power outage is one case where solar chargers and portable battery chargers come in really handy. They also work if you are somewhere away from outlets for awhile, while land lines don't. > 3. Cell phones get misplaced True, but the difference between one landline per house (single point of failure) vs many cellphones (one per person) makes up for that somewhat.

Frqy3 11y ago

FTTH also involves household powering for the connection to work. Even if a battery at the household end is supplied, will these be regularly tested and replaced when needed?