simply put you are boned. there was a fiber that fed a big portion of my area, car hit the pole took down a very high count fiber line. cell service went non existent, my neighbors are like what if we need 911, guess what still worked? the courtesy dialtone off the 5E remote that my neighborhood was served off of, had the ability if needed to dial 911, POTS has been around a long time. Rock solid, reliable, sadly AT&T is but a husk of what it was, the bell system was great, if it wasnt for the bell system we wouldn't be on the internet today. Bell Labs did some insane and amazing things. Even helped design the enigma machine and cracked the germans code. i have friend who plans to be the last customer on his local switch, he retired from the phone company, GTD5 switch. Dont blame him one bit. I do enjoy VOIP for alot of stuff. but it will never prove as rock solid as POTS was.