Yes, those batteries at the local "concentrator" (term used
a bit loosely and expansively) will keep your pseudo-POTS line
working during a power failure. For an hour or two or maybe five.
But that's it.


I agree, it depends on the size of the batteries. But the telcos were
not shy about having large batteries either, the installed base has been
deployed for 40 years when reliability was a primary concern,
so I'd suspect it's more
at the longer end of your time range or beyond. If it wasn't there
would be a lot of people complaining for decades about losing phone
service during power outages. I've lived in quite a few different
places and never recall losing phone service on the switched phone
system during any power outages.
I agree that it's not long duration, like having a generator at the
central office. But it's also not like you lose your POTS phone during
the typical power outage that lasts a few hours either. Fretwell has
a valid point, that even copper for many people probably won't last
a long time if they are not direct into a CO. And unless you have experience
with power outages of varying lengths, you really don't know how long
it will last. I got rid of my copper, VOIP and cell works for me.


My area's fiber connection is less than 2 years old and hasn't been
tested by a long power outage yet .. but our minimum power outages
are in the 3 - 4 hour range so I suspect that the upstream fiber
back-up is much more robust than the provided home UPS
up to 8 hours although I'm not keen to find out !
John T.


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