Incorrectboomerang wrote: You can buy a prepaid phone for less than $50 and a year of service for $75 to $100. And a cell phone can call 911 without service.
A cell phone can call 911 without a calling plan, a contract, etc, but it still needs to be able to talk to a tower. Any tower.
No tower = no call, period.
In this usage of the term, 'service' means active communications with a tower. If there's no towers in the area, there's no service, and no calls can be made, emergency or otherwise.
They were saying that in these remote areas, there is no 'service', as in, there are no towers for the phones to talk to.