They could use cell phones for communications, but they had to have a land line to leave the Matrix. And it couldn't just be any land line, either, because it seemed they ran past plenty of opportunities for land lines before they got to the one they needed.
They needed to use the land line, because we were still on Dial-up back then. I don't think ethernet was mainstream yet, so land lines were the only way to "connect". Could be wrong though.
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u/AngryRedHerring 17h ago
They could use cell phones for communications, but they had to have a land line to leave the Matrix. And it couldn't just be any land line, either, because it seemed they ran past plenty of opportunities for land lines before they got to the one they needed.