By Donnie Johnston, ADVANCE COLUMNIST
By the 1970s, almost every home in America had a telephone. We now call them “land lines” because calls needed wires for transmission. Nobody called them that back then because the term had not been coined. They were just telephones. Some were still rotary dial.
For the first 75 years of telephone service, the wires were overhead, which made them susceptible to high winds, ice storms, and falling trees. In the early 1970s Ma Bell, pretty much the only telephone company in America, began putting the cables underground for more security and reliability.
If you were driving down the highway and had car trouble you could go to almost any house and use the home phone to summon help. Most people had no problem helping out a stranger.
Fast forward to 2026. Last week I was heading out to get a load of firewood when I stopped for gas at a small country store. When I got back in my truck, the engine would not start. It wouldn’t even turn over. I assumed that the battery was dead.
Instinctively, I pulled out my cell phone to summon help. Then it hit me. I was in a dead zone. For about 20 miles along this highly travelled road there is no cell service, except in a few isolated spots. You drive four miles north of town and cell service is almost non-existent for almost the length of an entire county.
I went back inside the store and asked if there was a land line. There was, so I decided to call AAA and use the service I have been paying for for decades. I got, of course, an automated answering system that asked specific questions.
I tried several times but could not reach a human being. In the end the AAA system told me it would send a text to the number I was calling from, which was the store’s land line. Fat chance of that. So much for AAA.
Now I called a friend to explain my plight and see if she could summon help. Several calls, no answer. I didn’t know if she was in a no-cell-service area or just didn’t recognize the number, thought it was spam and just didn’t answer. Most people today won’t answer their phones if they don’t recognize the number.
I left a voicemail during the last try but realized that if she had no cell service it might be hours if she got the message—or got it at all.
In 1971 I could have used the Yellow Pages in the telephone directory to find the number of a garage or a tow truck. But then, in 1971 a real person would have answered the AAA telephone.
Eventually, I found the number of a mechanic friend who did answer an unknown caller and came to my rescue. As it turned out, there were a couple of loose wires and within a few minutes I was back on the road.
I was lucky. That store was the only business within 15 miles in the direction I was headed and it had one of the few land lines left in that area. Other homes in this “no service” are may still have had a land line, but we live in such a world of paranoia and distrust that no one probably wouldn’t have allowed a stranger to use the phone.
The point here is that Verizon wants to get rid of all land lines and I can understand why—because they are costly to maintain and almost everyone now has a cell phone.
But in an emergency—and in everyday life—what do people in these dead zones do for service?
That problem is further complicated by the fact that different cell phone providers have dead zones in different areas. If you live there, you can find a provider that services that area. If you’re just driving through, have an emergency and find there is no cell service, you’re just out of luck.
Landline phone service is no longer profitable, but it is the only service some customers have. How do you take that service away and leave people without phones in an era where this form of communication is needed for almost everything?
More towers? They are costly to build, and people scream bloody murder when one is planned for their neighborhood.
This becomes a real problem when your truck breaks down, and your cell phone won’t work. I know firsthand.
Once again, you have fallen behind the times. Check the latest that Starlink will soon link cell phones!