Do you have a landline phone?

[muon2]

I live 2 blocks from an AT&T central office that handles switching for my area. It is very hard to interrupt service from there to my house. Since the land line has its own power source on the line, I keep it and an old phone that directly plugs into the line. That gives me a virtually guaranteed communications line when power goes out, even if the cellular service goes out. I also still find that the land line gives more uniform signal quality, so for important conference calls, I prefer it. OTOH, I don't bother with a land line at my downstate apartment, I just have Comcast for internet and TV and a cell phone.