by
lr » Sun Jan 21, 2018 10:23 am
What dragonsclaw said.
Last fall, our house was near one of California's better wild fires (the Bear Fire), and were evacuated for several days (fortunately, nothing bad happened, thanks fire fighters). Last Friday, the incident commander Jake Hess gave a talk about the fire and response to the community, at a local fire station (great turnout, fabulous presentation). One thing that came up over and over: cell phones are not reliable. Lots of residents complained that they never got the reverse-911 evacuation orders on their cell phones, even if they had registered their cell numbers with the local 911 center. Everyone who has a land line got the phone call. Cell coverage in the mountains is already spotty; during the fire it became barely usable due to overloading: cell networks are much less regulated, and are designed for profit optimization during normal use, not for resilience in a crisis. At least we got lucky in that fire, that power didn't have to be cut to the area: When power is out, normal phone systems continue to function (simple phones are powered by the phone wire, and phone switch boxes have batteries that are required to be good for several days, the PUCC regulates that). Cell towers tend to have only minimal batteries to last a few minutes (some have generators).
We ended up never evacuating, by mistake, there was confusion about evacuation orders (we were initially told to stay, and that order was changed too late to leave). During the fire, we had regular landline phone and DSL all the time (and a generator ready to go in case the power goes out), and our cell phones worked great at home (we have phones that can do data and voice over wireless). Away from the house coverage was spotty to non-existing.
Any Californian who does not have a land line, 21st century or not, is making a deliberate personal safety choice. This is fire and earthquake country, like it or not.
By the way, this discussion has no bearing on whether Sonic should offer DSL with or without a phone line.