sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information co disaster recovery

It does. The system comes with a battery unit to keep telephone service going during power failures. If an external UPS is added, the service will stay up that much longer.

Maybe so, but are you talking hours or DAYS? Big difference if it's an extended Out Of Service.

If power is out for days, then the loss of a telephone will probably be trumped by spoiled food, the lack of heat/air conditioning, water and....in some cases....sump pumps.

Also, the areas that Verizon is offering FiOS, tend to be surburban. The local power utilities would have various options for getting electricity restored, unless there is a catastrophic failure that could result in downed telephone lines/poles and you'd be back to the above problems.

This is the reason that I choose to keep my copper twisted pair(s) from the telco CO, and pay the price of doing so. THEY have backup power for their backup power. The CO has diesel generators that can run for weeks if not months. The (real) hardwired telephones that connect to the CO at the customers' homes need no electricity to operate. All Hell can break loose, and as long as the phone is connected to the CO, you have service.

Fios, cable (read: joke), cell, etc and etc are power dependant. No power, no service. Batteries will (and do) die quicker than expected, especially if they are not used for years, VoiP phones are useless, and well, if you need emergency services, no phone, no services.

This is not some apocolyptic nonsense, I have seen three ice storms in the last decade near here that have left folks without electricity for over a week. Unless you have a REAL phone with REAL phone service, no electricity means no phone.

Thus, I elect to keep a REAL phone.

Joe

Dave I don't remember if you were you live was part of the 1998 Quebec Ice storm, but I read in a post storm Canadian Government report the communication utilities asked for and received priority on Fuel allocation for their generators and service vehicles.

A major problem according to the report was the portable generators being stolen from the cell sites and remotes.

If you had access to a cell you probably had some level of communications service. If you were land line only you could be out for a while until it was rebuilt.

It was interesting that there was no mention of the cable companies getting any special consideration for supplies in this report

Off topic a wee bit....

I worked with an electrician for a week in St Hubert, south of Montreal during that storm, replacing hydro masts, electrical panels, etc.

A Bell truck stayed at his neighbours place all week. We thought he was on holidays, but he told us they had been told to stay off the roads until further notice...which he did.

Some of the streets, you wouldn't want to drive down with all the downed wires (Bell, hydro and cablevision). Other streets, which were even worst, you wouldn't even want to walk down.

I have friends here in the Eastern Townships (south of Montreal) who didn't have power for over a month. However, most phone services were working.

What is hydro?

Joe

Electricity created by water turbines.

I know some telcos that are rolling out FTTH with express power (or whatever term you would like to call it) in which instead of abandoning their copper plant, they utilize the copper pair to power the fiber ONT. Therefore no batteries/local power needed at the customer prem and as long as the CO has power, so will the customer. It is a good approace. Is it cheap.......not by a long shot, that's why many aren't using it in FTTH builds.