I might not have been clear. Cell service was needed for work in NW NJ. Well maybe not needed, but these days organizations and people generally expect to at least have some access...
We had copper land line in camp with a small local company. But not good enough for DSL.
The phone service myself and my neighbors have with Verizon is Pennsylvania problem, and Philadelphia in particular. Basically they started with FiOS and then when they realized it wasn't going to pay off in time, they stopped expanding it. In Philadelphia they were half done and IIRC they had some deal with the City or state so they were forced to finish, but only kindof. Its pretty obvious the plan is get everyone they can off of phone lines onto FiOS for as long as they can. This way they get rid of phone techs (many of whome are real employees with benefits) and try to get as much money as they can from the FiOS that has been installed.
Its not even that great all the time. I was at my neighbors' last night watching a netflix show after dinner and in the second hour the download stalled, and stalled, and stalled. It was time to call it a night anyway.