Recommend cordless phone that will work during power failure?

[Reed]

Oh yee of little faith, see

[Jim Rusling]

I have an older Vtech that has a battery in the base unit. The main problem is that it only last about 3 or 4 hours. I just have the base unit plugged into the UPS that supports my computers. The UPS will last a long time if I turn the computers off. If you need one that will work longer than that, you can use a deep cycle battery with an inverter, or just get a generator.

[gfretwell]

Now that is a woman I could like. You go girl.

[Josh]

You might want to try it -- All of the cheapo clocks I've had will sound the alarm at the designated time if the power's out and it was set beforehand. The display is usually dark, but it will sound. My current cheap clock radio actually shows the time (without backlight) and lets me turn the radio on/off on battery only, but not all do that.

[AZ Nomad]

How often do you have power failures? Is the convenience of not having a cord all that important during a power failure? Get a cheap corded phone and only install it when needed. Baring that, get a UPS.

I use phone service from the cable company and am switching to VOIP. Neither will work during any power failure. During a power failure, I have my cell phone.

[N8N]

Sure they will, just put your cable modem and whatever equipment is provided for the VOIP onto a UPS. I don't have phone service at all but I do leave my cable modem on a UPS, saves me having to wait 2-3 minutes to reconnect when the power momentarily drops out while I'm web surfing. (my puter is a laptop, SWMBO's is also on a UPS.)

If I *had* another UPS I would put it on my cable box so that it wouldn't have to re-download the whole program guide after a momentary power failure, but I a) don't have one and b) don't care enough about TV to spend money on one.

Apropos of this thread, I did have a short power failure around 7:15 this AM, so I'm getting a kick, yadda yadda yadda.

nate

[gfretwell]

From my experience the cable (Comcast) goes out when the power goes out and if it is storm related the cable is the last thing to be restored. TV may take a day or two, data has been more like a week. I run a web site hat updates once a minute so I know how often the cable modem is out, even on a sunny day. That is why I got rid of my cable modem... ... I have never lost POTS service in a hurricane and my Western Electric phones will be OK after the nuclear holocaust. DSL failures are very seldom and of very short durations, based on my logs.

[N8N]

I have Cox cable and it definitely stays up while the power is out, as I have successfully checked my email during power failures before.

My last place I was lucky if the POTS worked on a bright sunny day, forget about bad weather. Hence my lack of POTS at my current place (same company, V*****n.)

nate

[gfretwell]

My guess is your phone company never upgraded their "plant". When Sprint bought up the little mom and pop telco (United Tel) here they buried fiber to the curb of every home. I have a fiber hub in my front yard and buried copper to the house. It never seems to fail.

[RickH]

My Comcast neighborhood infrastructure is their latest version, they updated the whole town last month, Internet speed is tripled over the already fast previous speed. We all have business class speed now. I also verified that I have phone service during a power outage, several times, by actually experiencing it, the line stays up. All these crazy posts for a simple question about a phone recommendation are ridiculous. So what if I want a cordless land-line phone to work during a power outage? IMO thats not asking much. I HAVE a wired phone, but I want to replace my cordless units with something with this simple feature, sheesh.

[George]

Traditional phone companies have lots of battery and often a generator so a POTS line will stay up for a long time. So a wired phone is a good choice because no local power is needed.

You might want to read my response further back in this thread about depending on a cellphone for emergencies.

[Doug Brown]

Or just get one of these - no power required;

[Doug Brown]

Then let your wife find what she "has to have"

[DerbyDad03]

A wired phone is only as good as what it is wired to...in my case it's a cable modem so it won't do me any good if there is no power. I do have one, and it has helped me determine if my cordless phone set is the problem or if it's the cable co's equipment - once it was mine, and once it was theirs. So mine comes in handy when there *is* power, but won't help if the power goes out.

I do have 12V power supplies and inverters, so I could get the modem up and running, but I'm not sure how far back into the cable co's system power would be needed for me to be able to use the phone. I guess a local outage wouldn't be a problem, but if it was widespread, I assume that whatever the modem talks to would be down also.

I read it. I'm with VZW, so that's a little comforting.

I live about a block from the local fire house, so I'll drag my damaged butt over there if I can't reach 911.

[Worn Out Retread]

As far as I know, if you have telephone over cable and the power goes down, you're screwed until the power is restored. The same goes for cell phones (at least in this area) no power, no cell phone. A standard old fashioned wired phone connected to the telephone company over telephone lines will still operate normally during a power failure.

[aemeijers]

One of many reasons I still keep a copper phone line, even though I'd probably save a few bucks a month with one of those combo deals. My TV, phone, and (3rd party) DSL all come in on separate pipes. TV is satt dish, with roof antenna as backup, because it was 2/3 the cost of cable around here. DSL is on the second pair, since it ain't from Ma Bell. Dial tone is the cheapest POTS they still sell around here. I have had dialtone with no DSL, DSL with no dialtone, and of course the satt service does whatever it wants depending on weather and wind, and how leafy neighbor's tree gets. Plus, of course, the 8-buck-per-month prepaid toy cell phone, which is mainly for traveling, and I use maybe

40 minutes a year.

-- aem sends...

[Mark Lloyd]

Power went out for several days here last September (because of hurricane Ike). A neighbor down the street has cable phone (Suddenlink, used to be Cox). That adapter has a backup battery that was good for all that time, but the phone didn't work after 4 hours (4 hours into the power outage) because the batteries at the cable node ran out. It was 28 hours more before the cable company put a generator on the node.

The standard landline phone (Verizon) I have kept working all that time.

[Phisherman]

It is wise to have a wired phone for emergencies. No batteries needed.

[Don Phillipson]

No cordless phones are battery-powered because cell phones have the same function and are nowadays sufficiently common (and cell phone towers have backup power supplies, i.e. are not solely dependent on the local electric grid.) Where power outages are frequent, locals hereabouts prefer wired phones.

[Nate Nagel]

I'll get my phone turned on as soon as Verizon's montly cost for land line services is less than that of my cell phone, and I have some assurance that it'll ever work.

Until then, I'll take my chances. I can always charge the cell phone in the car.

nate