Yeah, 3 different models.

My perception (and it is just that, I have no quantitative evidence) is that localized phone outages are more common than regional power outages.

I've been through a few reasonably large scale blackouts since moving to the Bay Area (including one that took out about 50% of San Francisco for most of a day) and never lost the ability to reach a cell tower with my phone. Before giving up our landline over the years we had several brief outages of phone service in our neighborhood. Many cell sites also have their own backup power supplies (not eternal but then neither are the backup power supplies that the phone compnay would be using as well).

Interesting as my experience is quite different. I have NEVER experienced a loss of land line capability. Ever. (Well, not counting the ones from not paying the bill, but that is a different story.)

Another reason I would prefer not to do the digital phone again is that if I've got cable, then a cable outage means no tv, phone or internet. Suck-tastic.

Out of curiosity, have you ever experienced a loss of cell service because a power outage knocked out all of the towers within range?

I also imagine a lot has to do with how much of the local telephone wiring is above ground and how much below ground.

(And I used my landline so rarely that it could have been AWOL for weeks and I wouldn't have known but when my DSL would go away I would check for a dialtone.)

No. But I've had a land line a lot longer than I've had a cell. And no earthquakes that I've been in the region of (I was 60+ miles away from the 94 Northridge quake and I believe I was in my last days of an installed-in-the-car cell). I mention earthquakes because that is the only thing I can remember causing power outages.

I haven't been subject to many power outages in general. Just lucky I guess.

As soon as you guys started talking about emergencies I thought about the Northridge quake. I was 4.5 miles from the epicenter. (I just looked it up!) Quake happened at 4:31am, phone was restored about 10am, but didn't get power back until 6pm. That alone makes me want to keep my exit out of the Matrix.