[Slyfox]

We kept our land line the way Ma Bell had installed it until we had a power outage. Our land line didn't work like it used to because it was powered by a battery in a box in our neighborhood that only had a shelf life of three days.

So we got Ooma, which is like Magic Jack. If the power does go out again we'll go to the library or Starbucks to power up our cell phones. No use paying through the nose for a land line when we can just hook it up to our Internet.

[MayflowerMadam]

“If the power does go out again we’ll go to the library or Starbucks to power up our cell phones.”

As “victims” of frequent power outages in our rural area, we bought a few of the emergency radios that you crank to charge the battery. (A couple can be charged by solar as well by cranking.) All of them have USB ports for charging cell phones, and they actually do a pretty good job.