My phones plug into wall jacks and don’t need power to work. I recently switched from the old fashioned kind to Spectrum VOIP. If my home’s electricity goes out, will my phones still work?
I initially purchased Spectrum’s battery backup device since they said it’ll keep the phone working for 24 hours in a power failure. But then a tech told me I’m better off with a UPS that I can plug several devices into, and Spectrum’s battery backup will only keep the phone modem running – and not the phone itself.
So which is it? If my home’s power goes out for 24 hours, I want to be able to call 911 during that time if need be.
You’ll need some sort of power source to keep your modem working be it a UPS or a deep cycle battery attached to a pure sine inverter. UPS is the easiest since it’s plugged in and available all the time. Deep cycle will generally last longer. Hopefully, your phone and modem are close enough together that they can both be plugged into the UPS.
Actually, they do need power to work, but it’s supplied via the phone lines themselves. AC makes the phone ring and you can get a modest shock if you’re touching the junction block when it does.
If you want to test it, turn of the circuit or unplug the VOIP modem to get it running on the battery backup. Then make a call.
Since many people have land line phones that still need to be plugged into AC, like cordless phones, the tech may have had that as part of his schpiel.
As an aside, I would be apoplectic if the battery backup I purchased couldn’t run a wired phone through the phone line. It is literally the only reason to buy a battery backup.
Another option is to rely on your cell phone when the power goes out. If you have a car, you can recharge the cell phone via the cigarette lighter (you’ll need an adapter). Or you can get a solar charger for a cell phone.
I ran the program to implement the VoIP system at the cable company I worked at back around 2003, and this was a big issue for customer adoption.
As pointed out above, in the old phone system, the power for the telephone unit in your house came with over the same wire that carried the signal, which was fine so long as you had a plain old telephone to answer, and not a cordless unit or one that was built into an answering machine.
We offered (upsold, tbh) a unit that had a battery on the VoIP Modem (which typically sat inside your house, right next to the phone that was plugged into it). But that was only enough power to run the modem for 6-8 hours so you could receive calls, provided you had a simple phone unit attached. It would not power your cordless or answering-machine phones so it always seemed like an incomplete solution (I still have a regular old phone somewhere just in case). If you only had a phone unit that needed to be connected to power, you were just as screwed when the power failed.
As the tech from the phone company expanded from copper to fiber or hybrid (eg, to offer video as did Verizon FiOS, where I also worked) they ran into the same issue - the device that terminated the connection at your home required power, too, and it didn’t run your phones unless they were the old-fashioned plain ones.
I can picture a few scenarios, but I don’t know the specifics of Spectrum’s setup, so I don’t know which is correct.
Your tech may have been thinking of phones that require their own power supply.
Spectrum’s battery backup may be dimensioned to power the modem for 24 hours, but will run out of juice earlier if you actually make any calls.
Spectrum’s battery backup may be dimensioned to power the modem for 24 hours, but will run out of juice earlier if your phone is drawing power when you’re not calling. (Are there cordless phones that charge from the phone jack? I haven’t had a land line for over a decade or a phone that didn’t require it’s own charger for more than that.)
These older-style phones get their power from the phone line, so as long as the Spectrum VOIP maintains the power in the line, the phones will work. The battery in the Spectrum modem should do this whether the power is on or off. To be sure, unplug the power to the Spectrum modem and verify that the phones still work. The technician is probably assuming you have modern phones which typically require an independent power source to work.
However, the battery backup in these kinds of devices are somewhat unreliable. The duration will often be lower or may not work at all depending on battery health. It will probably work, but you may want to have a cellphone as a backup in case the Spectrum device doesn’t work.
Furthermore, the Spectrum device only works as long as the cable is working. If the cable goes out, then your phone goes out too regardless of if there is power or not. A cellphone is good as a backup for when the cable goes out as well. And a cellphone is very useful in this instance since you’ll be able to call Spectrum from your cellphone to fix the cable. Cable companies generally have good reliability, but it’s likely that the cable will go out a bit more frequently than a regular phone service.
Thanks to everyone for your detailed responses! I’m still confused.
When I checked Amazon for power strip battery backups, it looks like they will only
keep devices running for a few minutes. Examples from the customer questions:
Q: How many hours of battery time do we have with this device?
*A: About 15 minutes
*A: It depends on how much power is being drawn at 120V - 50 Watts -36.7 minutes; 100 Watts -15 minutes; 200 Watts -4.7 minutes.
**
I need at least 12 hours. And my phone and modem are not close enough to each other that I can plug both into the same battery backup.
We still don’t know all the details of your network setup. So we’re all guessing at what you need.
The very short version is absolutely every box between wherever the wire enters your building and your handset that has a 120v wall-wart needs to have a backup supply of power. If any of the devices in your daisychain goes down, your phone is down. Depending on exactly how your installation is wired and boxed, that might be 1, 2, 3, or maybe even 4 distinct boxes that all have to be working. My home VOIP rig takes 4 powered boxes. Only you know how your place is wired.
If you need 12 hours you don’t need a consumer UPS. They don’t come that big. You need a professional to help you set up the big things you do need. Or you need to not depend on VOIP & go back to POTS and/or mobile.
Thank you, LSLGuy! I can’t begin to describe my setup since I don’t understand it.
But does it make sense to anyone that Spectrum’s battery backup would only power
the modem…and not my phones, too? I believe the modem cable goes into my phone jack.
This box you keep calling a “modem”. What kinds of wires plug into it? what’s the brand and model number? Are there any other boxes nearby that the other ends of these wires plug into?
These things you keep calling “phones”. What sort are they? How many different kinds do you have? How many do you have? Are these old fashioned telephones you used to use with traditional phone service? Something Spectrum sold you? With or without built-in answering machines? With or without amplifiers for hard of hearing? With or without a speakerphone feature? Is the handset connected to the base by a coiled cord or radio? Does it even have a base? Or a handset? Do they have any LEDs, lights, or screens, or only 10 digits and * and # keys?
Do you have any other boxes or wires anywhere in your residence related to your internet or cable TV service? Where are they? what model numbers are on them? What kind of wires plug into them?
if you can’t answer any of these questions, or better yet all of them, you need to find a local friend or business who can go to your house and figure it out for you.
This stuff isn’t rocket surgery, but it’s very hard for someone who knows nothing about this stuff to explain it to us out here in The Cloud accurately enough that our advice is anything but wrong, harmful, and confusing. Not trying to be a shit here, just trying to be realistic about what we’re both trying to do.
My “voip modem at home” will run a very old, very cheap, telephone without any extra power. But I use hands-free phones which require a small wall-wart.
My “voip phone” at work uses a POE switch… I can use it at home with a wall-wart and a network cable. Both at work and at home it requires a lot more power than either of the two phones mentioned above, because network cables require a lot more power than telephone cables.
It is rare to be sold a UPS that lasts 12 hours, but not uncommon to buy a UPS that allows you to connect an external battery.
That phone has a display, and a plug pack, and when the power goes off, the display stops working – but the phone keeps working. If the other one doesn’t have a plug pack, they both probably use about the same amount of power from the “modem” unit.
Without knowing how big a battery you’re being offered, and how long it lasts, it’s impossible to say how much effect those phones would have. If you have a multi-meter, you can measure the amount of current they draw. If not, take a first guess that they each require 20mA, and use 20mAh each hour. Compare that to the size of the battery offered: 500mAh would power such a phone for 25 hours…
My oldest phone uses zero current when not in use. None of my phone-line telephones use even 20mA when not in use – if they did that, the phone system probably wouldn’t work. But your “modem” isn’t a real phone system, and I don’t have technical details for your phones: I’ve just given you a number to start thinking with.
