Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2012 16:18:56 -0500
From: "Mike B." <yahoo at omniphile.com>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: landlines
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

On 12/28/2012 4:09 PM, Judith Newton wrote:
> On 12/28/2012 3:56 PM, Mike B. wrote:

>> existing towers, but around here, with Verizon, I've not found many
>> places I can't get a signal without going underground...and even
>> sometimes there when there's a repeater set up.
>
> You haven't been to our house lately.  Our cell phone coverage is too
> unreliable to give up our land line.  This despite a cell phone tower
> not 50 feet from our property line.

Coverage varies a lot by provider.  I have Verizon because their
coverage is better than the others, but for specific locations, the best
provider can vary.  Kate has AT&T, and even with the same phones
(iPhone), I often get signal when she doesn't.

> Also I'm really sorry I agreed to rip out our copper lines for FIOS. No
> power OR phone during outages.

Yeah, the UPS they provide gives you about 10 minutes of power.  I've
often wondered by they didn't use the existing copper to power the FIOS
terminal.  Probably something about the wire size and FIOS terminal
power needs.  With Pepco's work over the last couple of years, power
goes out a lot less frequently (not at all in the recent hurricane for
instance), so it's less of a problem than it used to be, but it would
still be nice to have phone even when power is out, without having to
invest in a generator.

-- Mike B.