"Mark" wrote in message
...
correct Fios has a battery at your home which is your responsibility
to maintain.

during a power failure, the battery powers your phone, for a few hours
only.

seems to me the lobbyists did their job convincing the govt that this
is ok, and we loose..

Mark



You are absolutely correct! I hung onto my copper line as long as I
could. A Verizon service technician told me that Verizon was not putting
any money into the maintenance of copper lines. The lines were getting
worse so outages were becoming more frequent. The number of technicians
that could repair them was shrinking as they retired or left the company
since new technicians were not being trained, at least as thoroughly, as
they needed to be to service copper lines. Finally, Verizon offered to
install FiOS for free. I found it interesting that they were charging at
the start of the changeover several years ago. I read recently that
Verizon's desire to change over more quickly has subsided since they are not
making as much money on FiOS as they planned.

I was told the battery lasts about eight hours of actual use time so
unless you make / receive calls lasting eight hours straight, the battery
should last for several days. I hate the idea of having to use a battery
for my phone in an emergency but I know that Radio Shack sells the
batteries. The batteries also last about five years at which time they
should be replaced as part of a PM program. I have been thinking about
getting a backup battery and regularly topping off the charge with a trickle
charger but I have procrastinated on this.