I think you will find that "nobody has a landline anymore" holds mostly in cities, where the thickest coverage is. And, like all "nobody/everybody" constructions, carries an unspoken qualifying clause, as in "nobody who matters" or "everybody I know." As in the statement "Nobody plays Sims 2 anymore."

All generalizations, after all, are false.

The margin is slim, but as of 2016, 50.8% of US households were cell phone-only and the number has most likely risen since then. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/...eless201705.pdf

9-1-1 (or the corresponding emergency phone number) on cell phones is pretty interesting. From what I understand, as long as you're in range of cell phone towers, the call will go through, even if you don't actually have service on the phone. If your phone's GPS is turned on, it can send your coordinates to the emergency operator. If it isn't turned on, or your phone doesn't have GPS in the first place, it uses the coordinates of the nearest cell phone tower. This might not always work reliably, though, so if you call emergency on a cell phone you want to be really clear on the location.

Most of my Sims are landline-only, though due to municipal by-laws, any Sim living in a cave cannot have a landline. Unsurprisingly, all adult Sims living in caves (which at the moment means all of them - other age groups only live in houses or flats at the moment) have a mobile phone. Since they're all adults, this works for them, and since none of them is allowed a computer (the same by-laws prohibit cave-dwellers from having any mains electricity at all), the author payment problem never arises.