Sure, but the vast majority of outages aren't related to a cut cable. I've done a ton of telecom work, and the thing I encountered most commonly was billing iss

Sure, but the vast majority of outages aren't related to a cut cable. I've done a ton of telecom work, and the thing I encountered most commonly was billing issues (ha!). Next up is equipment failure at either end of the line; bad card at the CO or bad modem on premisis. A distant third is outside issues like bad interconnects, and waaaaaaay out in forth is cut cables. It really doesn't happen all that often, even in big cities. By going with DSL and cable, they may be in luck even on that side of things. In a lot of places, phone lines (DSL) were run underground way back when the cities were built. Cable came much later, so it is frequently run above ground on utility poles. This means that if someone backhoes your DSL cable, the coax on the pole for cable internet will still be fine.