I would guess over two thirds of the population only has cordless phones in their home and roughly about a third up too a half of the population in the city actually uses Cable TV phone service. IOW they can't talk right now anyway. No Power? No Cable. With a Ma Bell land line you will have service with cable you won't. With cells? Possibly either way.
The cell phones would put far more stress on infrastructure than land lines. Cells can not function without Ma Bells Land Lines. That's why his statement makes no sense.
Post #140 Clarifies my point.
I see what you were getting at now and you’re right about the load from those cell towers. Most are going to still be active, at least for a little while, and there’s a good chance that a heavy cell usage spike would crash the system. There’s a reason most of us Bell guys have land lines in addition to our cells and it has nothing to do with company loyalty. ;)