Home phone service is horrible.

I have had AT&T Uverse home phone service for a couple months now & it's horrible.  I'm now locked in for 2 years & am not going to be able to handle this.

First problem is half of my calls never reach me.  My daughter & husband call frequently & end up calling my cell phone asking where I am.  I am at home not answering the phone because it never rang. 

Next problem is dialing out.  I dial the number & it either gives me a busy signal or says not possible on the phone's LCD screen.  Sometimes I need to try 2 or 3 times before it finally goes through.

Next problem is calls going dead/dropping (both inbound & outbound).  I can be in the middle of a conversation & I hear a click-click noise, dead air & then the dial tone.  This is extremely frustrating especially when calling someplace where you have to dial 1 for English, enter another # for the dept. you want & then have to put in your account #.  I finally get a live person & click-click, cut off & have to start all over. 

My husband has a job where he has to be on call for work issues & I also have my elderly, disabled sister living with us.  We need reliable phone service.  I had a service call & he checked everything, put in some silver box (Belkin battery back-up) which he said the initial installer forgot.  Then he gave me a stupid story about my account being past due.  It was 2 days past due, when I paid it, which was a couple days before the repairman came over. 

Is that the Mickey Mouse type of service I can expect?  You're late with your payment, so they're going to screw up your service.  Not happy.  Not happy at all.

Any fixes?