General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Why Cell Phones Went Dead After Hurricane Sandy - horrifying. [View all]MadHound
(34,179 posts)They're just fixated on the next bright, shiny object that is being sold in the store, be it an iPhone, Android, Galaxy, what have you. People in this country on average get a new cell phone every eighteen months, ooo, pretty, shiny. Truly is sad, the naked consumerism surrounding this product.
Meanwhile, out here in tornado country, and I do mean the country, virtually everybody has a land line. In part because cell phone service sucks out here, but also because we realize that it is good to have a land line when a major storm rips through. The land line system is pretty redundant, if the wire gets knocked down in one place, calls can be rerouted around it. And a simple land line for emergencies is pretty cheap, most people could afford to put one in(of course that means they couldn't get the latest, greatest phone gizmo, the horror).
Given the nature of cell phones, it is almost inevitable that the service goes out in major disasters. A tall tower, held in place by three cables, gets hit by a big wind and goes down, it's almost as reliable as trailer parks getting eaten by tornadoes. And on the off chance that the tower isn't knocked over, the big microwave dishes get knocked out of alignment, or the power supplying the tower gets knocked out, all of which leaves the tower useless.
The sad thing is, cell phone infrastructure is far more vulnerable to natural disasters, not to mention cell phones themselves. Say you have your power knocked out for a week or more, how are you going to charge your cell phone? While if you have a landline and the power goes out, the landline phone still works.
There are still advantages to old tech, and frankly cell phones aren't all that they're cracked up to be. Perhaps you should adjust your life to that fact