I wonder if batteries are still being made for the GSM phones from just before the iPhone came out. They might work, and are probably available on fleaBay.
Hopefully GSM isn't going the way of AMPS anytime soon.
2g is basically disabled in the US. Go out in the country, signal will be atrocious. Anything outside of a metro seems to require walkie talkies now. I've tried att, vz, tmobile, and sprint, but there's a nice spot I liked to go fishing where I could make phone calls up until ~2008 or so. Traveling around recently I've noticed this anytime I was in an area that had <5000 population.
Hopefully GSM isn't going the way of AMPS anytime soon.