Massive mobile network outages can leave you stranded without one of your most critical lines of access to the world for hours. And if your smartphone can't make phone calls , what good is it during an emergency?

An AT&T outage last year, for instance, disrupted services for more than 12 hours in many of the most populous cities in the US, while a Verizon outage caused some phones to remain stuck in SOS mode for a significant part of the day. These outages served as a reminder of the perils of relying only on mobile phones.

Perhaps it made you reconsider the role of a home device that was once standard issue but is now nearly obsolete: the landline telephone. Here's what to consider when deciding whether to keep (or get) a landline.

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