Rural copper lines not dependable. Is wireless the answer?

[RuralCopper]

Hi ... As per one of their employees, rural land line service in upstate New York (I.e. Schoharie County) is not being updated and will eventually be abandoned. We have constant issues with our phone service such as noise on line, calls cannot come in or no dial tone ... Our phone line is currently out of service again and next available repair appointment is in 7days. I figure we will be forced to go wireless but wireless signal is not consistent either. Has anyone who lives rural investigated dropping landline and switching to Verizon wireless? Do you know anything about signal boost that some vendors are advertising? Does it help? Thanks.

[armond_in_nj1]

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@RuralCopper wrote:

 ... rural land line service in upstate New York (I.e. Schoharie County) is not being updated and will eventually be abandoned ... I figure we will be forced to go wireless but wireless signal is not consistent either. Has anyone who lives rural investigated dropping landline and switching to Verizon wireless? Do you know anything about signal boost that some vendors are advertising? ... 

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Your area may be rural, but it's certainly not "backwoods."  You are in the greater Albany metro region and at least in theory you should have access to a wide array of telecommunications services.  However from what you say that does not appear to be the case.  I certainly agree that companies like Verizon are not going to be putting much effort into maintaining older networks as time goes on.  So what to do?

If I were facing the problem of losing reliable landline service (POTS or otherwise), I'd avoid the "wireless only" route.  I'd certainly maintain wireless for general communications and emergency service but for home use, I'd look into VoIP providers.

Over the years I've had a number of VoIP providers.  Most recently I used Vonage, and a quick glance at the Vonage coverage map indicates that they service your area.  Of course I'm assuming you have adequate broadband service, because that's required for VoIP.

[RuralCopper]

no DSL or Cable TV service available on my road. Only broadband options are satellite (very expensive for what they offer) or cellular smartphone. So if landline goes, guess the only option we have is a cell phone and hope it has signal when needed.