DIYbanter - View Single Post - bye-bye land line telephone

Don Y[_3_]

On 5/14/2016 9:18 AM, wrote:
I have been through several hurricanes here in Florida. Internet is
the first thing to go. Power failures will take that out, even if it
is not bad where you are. Anything up on a pole is going to go early
too so power is at risk. Cell phones are going to be spotty and cable
TV is worse.
Phone infrastructure is buried in my area and I have never lost my
POTS phone and my DBS satellite comes back as soon as the sky clears.
Broadcast TV was still there in the storm.

+1

I've *never* (in my lifetime) had a "phone outage" (have lost power,
water, and natural gas, but never phone).

Had a problem with a line once that I traced to a length of
quad that had fallen onto the top of the furnace (and, eventually,
degraded the insulation enough to cause a partial short).

Here (below grade services), had a problem that interfered with DSL
(but not voice) that was probably a result of moisture infiltration
in the cable (the linesman just moved us over to a "better" pair).

Watched a city worker once drive the post for a street sign
THROUGH the cable feed for the neighborhood (with a pneumatic
hammer). I suppose he could just as easily have caught the
phone, instead -- but I think it is buried deeper (CATV is
really "cheap", IME, when it comes to installation)