I live in the Orlando, FL area and i have only had a cell phone for a about a year, but before i went with a plan i talked to everybody i could about the coverage they had and how well it worked after the storms blew though. Verizon was the best by far.

Here is a corporate line about disaster prep,

http://multimedia.verizon.com/responsibility/service/emergencyPrepardness.aspx

I have Verizon also and have stuck with them for years because I have had a multitude of company phones and/or pagers through other services that have all failed at one time or another.
Also I still try to make sure I have a tri mode phone so I can still get an analog signal when I'm way out where there are no digital towers.
"AOL Instant Messenger Blackberry pagers"
Are you meaning AOL IM AND Blackberry pagers? because Blackberry is not affiliated with AOL in any way, Blackberry actually gives good reliable service...

I doubt that you will find a decent cell phone and service that fits your description (cheap, long battery-life, and great coverage).

Here's what I have ...

Cheap:
DH and I each have a pre-paid phone. Each phone is $15 every 90 days, so it works out to about $5 a month. If you know of a cheaper cell phone, let me know, because even at that rate, we don't use enough minutes on our phones.

Battery Life:
Our battery life is okay, but not great. However, I think that depending on a long battery life for leaving a cell phone in a car is a bad idea anyway. Even if you keep the phone turned off, you will have to eventually recharge the battery, and it is easy to forget if it isn't part of your normal routine. Plus, an "almost dead" battery is just about as bad as a dead battery, because once you start talking on the phone the battery is used much faster. Some alternatives are the one-time use "battery cards" that you can use to power a cell phone with a low battery. There are also hand crank devices for powering a cell phone. Another alternative is just get the car charger for you phone (this is what we have). After all, if you're going to keep the phone in the car, you can always power it that way.

Coverage:
I can't help you there. Our coverage sucks. However, we live within a few blocks of a major freeway, and I almost never travel out of suburbia. However, I have noticed that over the years coverage has gotten better. One advantage of a network with nationwide coverage is that if you end up having to evacuate to a distant (urban) location, hopefully you will have cell phone coverage at your new location.

Special features:
You state that you aren't interested in any special features other than making phone calls. However, I would recommend making sure that you get a phone that can text message. In the event of a large disaster, you might be able to get a text message through when the lines are too busy for phone calls.

Hope this was informative.

-Kuovonne

I cannot speak with authority regarding anything outside New York State, but here you can find cheap pre-paid cells with the brand name TracFone. These make ideal backup cells, especially for putting in a car emergency bag, etc. Heres why:

These TracFones use the unused airtime of multiple cell carriers. When you make a call, the phone checks to see which carrier wants to take the call, and then TracFone gives a portion of the proceeds proportionate to the length of your call to that particular carrier. The practical upshot is youre not tied to one particular carrier; multiple networks can pick up your call and put it through.

Be aware that power will be an issue; match each phone with a charger and a second way of keepeing the battery charges ( dynamo, spare batt, etc.)

I've been really thinking about getting one of those satellite based phones. During 9/11 I remember pretty most cell phones didn't work because the main cell tower for our area was on the twin towers, with a satellite there is less of a chance of the cell towers getting knocked out. Last I checked they were pretty expensive though, especially for something that would sit pretty much unused.

I agree -- Its alot of money to tie up for something you might use. The same $2,100 would pay for gear for five, advanced training/ classes and a nice bike.

Budget well, young jedi,

TRO

( new blog on the way)

My partner went to Mississippi after the hurricane to help out. She was part of a team that went from our EMS service. They brought a Satellite phone with them. She said it just didn't work....No idea if there 'wasn't a signal' or if it was something else but she said that for 2 days it wouldn't work. She also said that the other agencies (not affiliated with us) also had sat phones and theirs wouln't work either. I'd rather spend the money elsewhere personally.

The SAT phones probably didn't work because of a saturation of their use in that area. The other possibility is user error, but from what I gather, things have really advanced in the last 10 years that they nearly operate like a cell phone.

If you need communications out of a disaster area, use HF of some sort. Be it Amateur Radio, your licensed HF freq, or a company that provides them.

Be aware, both satellites and HF are affected by solar activity.

Regarding 911 service:
By FCC regulations, any cellphone that is capable of connecting to a cell phone network (i.e. it has a battery, and can transmit) its emergency calls must be accepted by any provider. Normally, your cell phone will connect to the tower with the strongest signal. My next thought is when you're in a vehicle, how does two competing cell phone providers route an active 911 call between towers?? So, if you're in an suburban/rural environment where cell phone towers are not close together, you might want to get a better antenna. Also, new phones must be capable of providing their location within 100 feet, accomplished via a GPS enabled handset, or differential location among one or more cellphone towers (This is Phase II E911 compliance). This all depends on the provider Just more info to help make a decision.

To answer your question about "routing 911 calls between providers": It works the same as any other call. The only difference is that it bypasses the billing part of the call setup, and the calls get routed to a specific PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point)

Typically, a handset will be programmed with preferred SIDs (system IDs) and sometimes "non-preferred". When a phone powers on, it attempts to register with its preferred network provider. If there is a handoff from one cell site aka tower to another, the system will attempt to pass to another tower from the same provider. If that is not possible, it will pass to another provider going down the list in order of "perference"...basically set up by the roaming agreements between providers. If it finds none in the "perferred roaming [SID] list" it will grab the first, strongest, signal it can find.

Most of this info is based off the old Analog AMPS standard. The concepts are similar with digital phones, but there are many more bands (800/900/1800/1900 Mhz) and modulation techniques (CDMA,GSM,TDMA iDEN,etc.). Overall, the good news is that digital cellular coverage is getting better and better. Analog coverage, while more pervasive, is going away, and providers will soon (if not already) no longer be required to provide analog service.

I am not a cellular industry rep, anyone who is or can correct/clarifiy, please chime in.