My friends at Telco tell me that in a real catastrophe phone service will be dropped except to an approved list of those in authority and critical services. Comforting, huh?
When 9/11 happened, cell service in the Northeast crashed anyway. It was so overloaded that your chance of getting a call to connect was about 1% or less. I assume this would be done so at least SOMEONE could communicate.
serfs we are
The DoD recently dropped the DRSN phone system, despite its being inherently more resilient. In the event of a significant comm outage, the government will appropriately commandeer whatever systems are still available. Ham radios have consistently proven invaluable during numerous catastrophes, and I imagine that won’t change, despite its lessening appeal to current generations.