Cell Phone Soapbox

Most of the time I love that I live in a technological world. I love the internet - email, Myspace, blogging, googling, etc. I can spend hours on the computer learning new things, staying in touch with friends, and here in my little "world of Stacy" place keep everyone up-to-date on my crazy life and vent about things that confound me, confuse me, or aggrevate me. I also appreciate the fact that 99% of the people in my little world have cell phones and that I can reach them just about no matter where they are or what they're doing. No more calling their houses periodically until they finally get back home. And text messaging is sometimes even more convinient than calling, especially during work-time hours. I am so very thankful that we don't live in the age of old where men on horseback delivered handwritten letters that took days and weeks to arrive at their destinations. No, friends, we have an easy life. However, in being so spoiled to having everyone at my fingertips, I do have one major complaint.
It's two-fold. The first thing is that my cell phone has extremely poor reception at my house. It generally has enough reception to send and receive text messages, but I'm hard pressed to have a strong enough signal to carry on a telephone conversation without it getting cut short. It's something that I've learned to live with for the most part, but it's an ever-present aggrevation. Some places in my house have good reception - well, good enough anyways - while other places have almost none. This brings me to the next part of my gripe-session. Sometimes I will loose all signal in one location, even if I just had it moments before in the same spot. I'll dial a number and my phone shouts to me "No signal - Emergency calls only!" So here's the big question: Why can the cell phone companies not engage the emergency calls only technology to every phone regardless of where they are? I mean, what if I needed to call my dad for something I deemed an emergency but my phone was in an "emergency only" location. If I was bleeding to death at that moment and needed to call 9-1-1, I could do it. Why not put that same signal to use for a "normal" call? Am I alone in this mindset? Cell phone companies are on the road to wiping out land-line phones. They have set this as their goal, and are quickly achieving it. Most people my age don't even have landlines in their homes. Cells only. Those of you reading this who live in more urban areas probably have no idea what I go through searching for a signal. But those of us who live out here need a steady signal too. It's time for the cell companies to step up and help us out.