In reply to a post by eckiedoo:

Although technically the other responses are correct, it also depends upon how widely the power failure covers.

So if very local, there may be ways to overcome it; BUT ...

Just to add some meat on the bone. During the last year there has been 6 power outages in the village and that has seen many clued up residents having available a simple tone POTS phone to hand when the lights go off. Standby generators are in use at a few properties. FTTC broadband connections die after a few hours with those on ADSL able to carry on with a laptop assuming power can be supplied to the router; it seems a car battery with an invertor does the trick.

As for mobile usage, forget it as there is no service at all while the power is off. Whether that is true for Sure Signal users is unknown.

Whereas in the past a backup Internet service was available from your ISP using dial up, my understanding is that the dial up service is no longer available but even if it was my laptop doesn't have an inbuilt modem.

There doesn't seem to be anyway that a FTTC user can remain connected even though POTS is working, unless someone here knows better. Our longest outage was from 10am on 23rd December to sometime on the 27th right when you want to keep in touch with friends and family. Been off for around 12 hours since.

I am a non LLU Zen subscriber using FTTC.

POTS = Plain Old Telephone System, just in case you did not know.

FTTC is powered at the cabinet. No idea if there is power backup at the cabinet - I would think not or if there is it's minimal ie 30mins. ADSL is over POTS as you call it so power is at exchange.

This still works http://emergencyinternet.com/

Here's a cheap USB modem http://www.ebuyer.com/454163-dynamode-56k-external-u...

Edited by deleted (Tue 25-Feb-14 12:42:45)

There doesn't seem to be anyway that a FTTC user can remain connected even though POTS is working, unless someone here knows better.

The street DSLAMS do have batteries in them, but I doubt they last long enough to cover the outage you mention. This all presumes your UPS would keep the FTTC modem going long enough your end also !

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

This still works http://emergencyinternet.com/

Here's a cheap USB modem http://www.ebuyer.com/454163-dynamode-56k-external-u...

Very interesting BatBoy that I will give it go with the USB modem suggested.

In the past with using dial up services there was some kind of restriction with the use of dial up numbers and the tariff applicable. If 0845 numbers are included in your call plan, which is not unusual, I wonder if the call remains free. In which case how does http://emergencyinternet.com/ make any money out of the facility?

yes batteries, they last four to five hours, maybe a little more if you are the only line left running.

Option to hot swap and keep cab active apparently, but whether used will depend on the customers on the cabinet, e.g. what SLA people have, or whether supplying other priority premises.

During the Christmas power cuts (reminds me how slow is the UKPN compensation) I was on brown out.

Heating would not work, freezer off, old bulbs would give a dull glow but CFL nothing, but switch mode power supply on router kept going apart from the hours when supply is totally off.

Took the precaution of manually tripping out most of the house circuits in case of surges.

it really depends on openreach's ability to keep resourcing someone to change out the batteries, or if longer term like after an RTA where the mains has been disconnected, to get a standby trailer connected.

3G is probably not viable as the mobile base stations have very limited power backup capability.