&gt; Cell phones require reception.<p>This seems the biggest problem.  While there&#x27;s good reception at home, on vacation we went some places where there was no signal.  That&#x27;s worse than the days before cellphones were ubiquitous because payphones aren&#x27;t around much anymore.<p>&gt; 2. Cell phones require power. In a prolonged power outage<p>A prolonged power outage is one case where solar chargers and portable battery chargers come in really handy.  They also work if you are somewhere away from outlets for awhile, while land lines don&#x27;t.<p>&gt; 3. Cell phones get misplaced<p>True, but the difference between one landline per house (single point of failure) vs many cellphones (one per person) makes up for that somewhat.