&gt; Nice to know we can still place a call if the power goes out.<p>Actually not entirely true. Following Hurricane Sandy, a majority of Manhattan from about 42nd street south to the Battery was without power for several days. A lot of the rooftop cells that fill in gaps in service lost power and so coverage area and capacity were greatly reduced.<p>Furthermore, a fairly significant (but definitely not majority) of landlines are over VoIP with FIOS. Battery backups for the Demarcs only lasted about 12hrs and even if yours lasted longer, you still might have difficulties because some COs were flooded and&#x2F;or had generator failures.