SMS text message is definately faster. The reaon is that it is sent on the control channel that all cell phones use to connect to the tower. The capacity is much larger, and your phone can "automatically" retry a few times, similar to ethernet. Plus, people can email you back. Make sure though that they know you are limited to something like 120 characters.

Also, designate an out of state contact. With the design of telephone systems, the local trunk lines (between local exhanges) can be overloaded. Also, the cellular phone network uses the POT to go between towers, thus, they go between local exhanges.

The long distance trunks will probably be underused, or in most situations (i.e. 9/11 in New York) normally inbound trunk lines will be restricted to outbound calls, because of call volume.

If could be wrong about this, if so, I need correcting! Please, post any site that has good information