I have two of the 'old' touch tone desk phones and we've got a hard wire landline. There are three cordless phones on it with the dinosaur phones, the computer (to fax or whatnot) but the nice part is if all the power is out, the old punch button phone works when the computer and cordless don't.
I need to maintain a landline for our alarm system and it has battery backup for it so, I should always be able to get a call out or in as long as the lines last and there is hard line service. That said, my wife and I have cell phones and I have a cell from work too.
Paul in MN -