The batteries in the FIOS box are shot. For landline voice only. Replace them or get a UPS? Keep in mind this box is in the basement and I am disabled. I will have my guy in late May to service the A/C and he can do the work. IIRC the existing batteries have lasted 8+ years. Any opinions or thoughts?
How much are the batteries and how long does it keep it going versus what you need/want? If the batteries performed OK, lasted 8 years, don't cost too much, why change what works?
I would think that FIOS should service it. I had one as a land line and batteries were shot but phone still worked and I had another line with VoIP with Comcast. I since shut off the FIOS line and no one came to the house to take anything out. Since the box was plugged into my home service, I figured only need for batteries was in the case of a power failure. Comcast does not have them. We had a brief power glitch today and phone cut out coming back when power came back on.
I don't really see the need for the batteries of a FIOS box for the land line. If you loose power, what is going to power the phones ? Most people have cordless phones and they do not work without power. I have a phone that is not cordless and it will not call out on the cable modem as the touch tones do not work. I can answer and talk with it. Chances are that the power for the FIOS system will be out or the lines will be down anyway.
Hopefully you have a cell phone and can use it for any needs. I don't use the cell phone much and have my landline over the internet. I have had to use the cell phone a couple of times to see why my internet was out.
I have my modem and IP Phone box on a UPS and have the base for my cordless phone powered off the same UPS. If the power goes out I have about 2 hours of wifi internet AND telephone.
But it doesn't. I asked in advance.
Comcast is different, I guess.
I think you're right.
We had a power glitch when I was on the phone. I have a wired phone with a wired handset. There are 3 cordless extension but the phone by my desk is wired and would normally have worked in a power failure. In fact it was good to have something to do in a power failure.
I got the box that holds the batteries, 12 D-cells!! That's a lot! and so I didnt' buy the batteries, and so when there was a power glitch of only a second or two, my phone connection was broken. I think batteries would have kept the connection going. (And if it hadn't been VOIP, it would have been fine also.) Without the batteries it took 3 or 4 minutes for the FIOS modem on my dsk to show the normal 2 lights. And then I called my friend back. I could have used the cellphone right away and if it were not someone I knew, caller id would have had the number (called id won't work, I'm sure, until the power comes back on, but that only took a couple seconds. )
To hear they lasted 8 years is encouraging.
A UPS is only good for about 5 minutes iiuc, and it makes 110 VAC. I think the batteries are good for a couple hours talking time and longer when no one is talking. Someone online say 8 hours but I don't now if that is when talking or only when not talking.
I red that the batteries are backup only for the phone. The internet and tv will still not work.
OTOH, if you have a UPS you can connect the computer to it also and maybe then you'd have internet (but only for 5 minutes or whatever) adn you could also shut down the computer normally, but I don't have that and because I save everything I'm writing pretty often, and because of auto-save, and because Firefox now remembers my tabs much more reliably, I've never lost anything in a crash in the last 4 years.
You're using a laptop computer Ipresume. Are you using fiber optic for internet?
In a grid outage, I have 16kW available until the Generac pukes.
The 650 va UPS on my modem/ip-phone is good for about 2 hours idle - over an hour running wifi. The 1200 va powerware unit will run my i7 desktop for almost an hour - about half an hour withthe 27 inch monitor. I could double that with a single extender pac and it will take up to 4. The 500va on the cable tv box will run it for almost a half hour but won't support the 50 inch plasma at all.
He didn't mention a computer, laptop or otherwise. By having the Wifi on hand, *any* battery powered device; laptop, phone, tablet, etc. will still work from batteries and be able to connect to the internet.
Fibre optic broadband here comes with its own battery backup. I presume the same applies elsewhere.
If you read the thread, you'll see your last sentence is half-true. Here it coms with its own battery box, but the 12 D-cells have to be purchased by the user.
Some cordless phones like Panasonic, have a feature where if the power goes out, you can use any of the phones except the one sitting on the base station. That handset provides power for the base station. You can use the base station, but only the speakerphone (not picking up that handset).
We lost power in the storm last night. Lot of power was down but only
64 on line around here. I started the generator figuring we might watch TV but cable was also out so no phone, no TV, and no internet. Power out for 8 hours but took cable another half hour afterwards.My desktop is on a UPS. Power went out and I just finished the game I was playing before turning computer off. Years ago I had bad problems with a computer crashing in a power failure with no UPS or circuit breaker. Several years ago we had the high tension line fall on low tension line to blow out every circuit breaker in the house. I was on line on the desk top with no problem even though circuit breaker to UPS was fried.
Last night with power and cable outage I had to walk out to the street to get cell phone reception.
That would depend entirely on what it's capacity is and what it's powering. I would expect even a modest UPS would power a VOIP box for an order of magnitude or two longer than 5 mins.
and it makes 110 VAC. I
A similar thing happened here, but the cable power backup (at the end of this block) failed too, as well as something else so it wouldn't work even after power was back on. Power outage lasted almost exactly 2 hours. Cable was out those 2 hours and about 6 more.
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My first cell phone (AT&T, in about 1999) was like that. To use it here, I'd have to go out in the yard and hold it carefully in a certain spot.
AT&T would be fine in the business area less than a mile away.
The current phone (Verizon) sometimes has a weak 4G signal inside, but this phone can use WiFi also.
During an outage here, I often turn off the computer as soon as I can. The security DVR (with 4 cameras) kept working all through the 2-hour outage we had a few days ago.
BTW, when the power went out here (transformer failure, I was told), I heard a loud noise from the direction of the big transformers.
[snip]
As do I. That works well. The batteries in the phone only box are dead and I need them replaced.
I'm pretty sure I've never had a UPS battery last 8 years. I've learned to be satisfied if they make it to 4. If the FIOS batteries aren't too expensive and you don't want a UPS for other purposes, such as powering your router, I'd follow trader's advice and stick with what has worked so far.
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