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Power to the People

perigrin on 2007-08-14T03:28:18

We had lights for all of 5 out of the last 66 hours (and yes it is out again).

Storms with 70mph winds blew through here at 4am Saturday night, wreaking havoc and throwing 100K+ people in the cities into darkness. Since our line only holds about 50 people (despite being in teh center of the city!) we were last on the list to get repaired. They fixed it this evening early enough for us to clean out the sodden fridge, and the now-thawed freezer and fix a meager meal of what we had been able to save.

We were just finishing dinner as the news was reporting of a second storm blowing through the area. My wife sent me out to move her car out of Hail range, and I was waling back in from the garage when POP, sizzle ... the transformer blew out (with pretty green sparks).

I sit here again in the dark, wondering if I will have power tomorrow. *sigh*

Also: Vonage doesn't work without electricity.

UPDATE: after 81 hours we have electricity again.

VoIP and power outages

Limbic Region on 2007-08-14T12:32:52

When I first got VoIP several years ago through my cable company (huge discount for having phone + cable + internet), they did not provide any type of battery backup and my UPS was already strained with my 22 inch monitor and honking tower.

I recently switched to a new cable provider and was suprised that the cable modem and phone MTA are now in the same device with 9 hours of onboard battery backup. The only draw back is that you need to use a corded phone because most cordless phones won't function without the base station having electricity.

Does Vonage not provide anything in the way of battery backup?

Re:VoIP and power outages

perigrin on 2007-08-14T13:31:51

Vonage themselves do not. But high on my wishlist now is a pair (my network is fairly spread out with the voip box on the upstairs switch, and the cable modem and main router in the basement with the kurobox) of UPSes.