It's not necessarily true that if your cell phones "don't work" that "more than likely" the landline system is also useless. Your cell phone may "not work" because your battery is dead, you are someplace without cellular coverage, you are inside a building that does not get a decent cellular signal, the local cellular tower is overloaded with callers, the local tower is physically damaged or without electricity, etc. In all of these situations, the landline system may be working just fine. If that landline access is a payphone then a calling card (whether prepaid or not) will let you talk for a long time without worrying about having a pocketfull of coins. Or if you want to conserve your cell phone battery for critical calls, like during a long power outage, then you can use the calling card with a payphone when a payphone is available. Again, if you need to call long-distance on a payphone and talk for a while or make multiple calls, then you're out of luck unless you have a lot of coins handy.