I keep a POTS in my house, though it goes through the cable service so I also have it on a UPS backup.

Funny you should mention that, I was going through my panick bag and someone found my RJ11-cat3 wire with four aligator clips on the other end (for you non-techies, that is a telephone cord with aligator clips on one end) The perosn asked me why I had that and a cheep toy phone (the realy cheap phones that they sold for children to use, it has a dial pad that takes POTS conections, and a little cheap ear piece with mic.)

I explained that I started carry that when I was doing SAR, it was a great way to hook into phone lines incase of a true emergency and be able to call for help. This happened back when I used to do SAR in places where there were ocasionaly phone lines, but little to nothing elese in the area.