In a city, cellular is as good or better. Outside of mass population centres, it's massively variable. As suggested by other posters, just because it's supposedly copper doesn't mean it's the independently powered service from the past.
Around here, it's still kinda-copper-ish -- but maybe not. In the last decade, there are many places where straight copper has been replaced by a multiplexing system to accommodate many more phone lines, which over a decade has degraded service enormously. I saw dial-up internet for email go from usable to dead, which is how I found out. Still, copper-ish for emergenciec is generally more reliable, for now.
In the little hilly pocket in which I currently reside, within view of a city of a million people, neither police nor ambulance have reliable cell service; and I am now cell-only. It gives me pause.