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Another real life example. The outage is effecting about 100 square miles. Local cell towers are on fuel cell back up power. Good for a week plus. As you can see my phone service is just fine. Have spare batteries if this continues for more than a day.
Not only do I have a phone that works, but a pocket computer also. Desktop and WiFi are not working.
Some phones may not work without power but you don't need power for a regular landline, in my area the phones have always worked when there is a loss of power. Many new phones will work without power, you will lose calling ID features etc but it will still allow you to take and place calls. If you want to check your phone pull the plug.... Others may have battery backup, usually two or three triple A's but you are better off with one that simply works. Of course an old phone will always work. Also keep in mind you want the phone to be corded.
If you have VOIP phone service you can get a small UPS for the modem, router and the VOIP box. This will allow you to continue to make VOIP calls and use the internet.
Some phones may not work without power but you don't need power for a regular landline, in my area the phones have always worked when there is a loss of power.<>
Partly true but not always reliable. Land line plain old telephone service provides it's own power but most people have a handpiece that requires electricity to operate. You need to track down an old phone that takes it's power from the phone plug itself.
And eventually the telephone company power may be lost.
Partly true but not always reliable. Land line plain old telephone service provides it's own power but most people have a handpiece that requires electricity to operate. You need to track down an old phone that takes it's power from the phone plug itself.
There is nothing partly true, what I said was "some phones". They make new phones that will operate without power, you need to check the specs on the phone. New phones need regular power for extra features like displays, charging a cordless etc. You will lose those features if the power goes off, at least that is the way ours works. You can still receive and place calls with it. The one we had previous to this had three triple A's as backup, it even retained the caller ID features but I don't know if it continued to work without the batteries if the power went off. Something went wrong with it and we replaced it with the one that simply works. As last resort we have one old phone.
You should have one phone like this in the house and make sure it's corded because you can't recharge cordless phone if there is no power.
Quote:
And eventually the telephone company power may be lost.
True but damage to infrastructure is always possible for any type of communication. I've never lost power to the phone or the internet during a power failure, that's not to say it can't happen.
... True but damage to infrastructure is always possible for any type of communication. I've never lost power to the phone or the internet during a power failure, that's not to say it can't happen.
I believe that this comment was about how even landline telephone systems do require electricity 'somewhere', and it's usually several hours worth of batteries at a neighborhood control building, which also will have diesel fueled backup generators.
So they could be good for up to several days, (assuming these buildings weren't damaged), but from then on, the depend on fuel deliveries, which may or may not be possible.
I understand there are a lot of folk that were without cell or landline phones in Houston for many days, because of this. Also, in New Orleans after Katrina. (It took several weeks before diesel could be delivered all the places it was needed).
Back at home:
A trick to keep in your pocket. During blackouts, cell phones, tables and such usually can still be recharged by cigarette lighter cables from your car.
Another real life example. The outage is effecting about 100 square miles. Local cell towers are on fuel cell back up power. Good for a week plus. As you can see my phone service is just fine. Have spare batteries if this continues for more than a day.
Not only do I have a phone that works, but a pocket computer also. Desktop and WiFi are not working.
I'm not sure how this shows your phone service is fine but that's not surprising. Phone service generally works during power outages just fine. Even home internet in most cases will work as there's redundant power sources. Obviously you would need a backup power source for your router and desktop computer, however, just like you have with your cell phone. Desktops take a fair amount of power so you'd need a fairly large UPS to keep it running for an appreciable length of time but routers do not. An inexpensive UPS designed to keep a desktop computer powered for 15 minutes or so to save work and shutdown will keep your router going for hours which is why my router and monitor, router, and laptop dock are on a UPS. Power goes out and I keep on going about my business.
Power outages longer than an hour the cell phone is nice as I can undock and work on the laptop and use the cell phone as a hotspot. I have a couple laptops so probably enough to keep going for 12-14 hours. At that point if the power still isn't back, well, diesel generator. But you probably have bigger concerns than being able to stream Netflix if the power is out for 12 hours.
Last edited by Malloric; 10-30-2017 at 06:05 AM..
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