Fiber and power

Btone

Btone

Btone

Associate
Joined
23 Jan 2003
Posts
1,785
Location
N.I.
A few weeks ago we had a power outage, as we on BT fiber that ment we lossed our phones as well as the internet, we need the phone for my mother panic\fall button to work, if I got a ups for the router\button would I still have phone access, or does a power cut also cut power to the BT cabs. (do BT still use their own power supply)
 
Yes you would, however the FTTC cabinets in the road can also be affected by power cuts if it's affecting a large area. I'm not sure if AG nodes for FTTP are affected by power cuts or not.
 
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Speak to BT, if your mother is classed as vulnerable they should be able to provide a small back-up battery (essentially a small UPS) for the router and ONT free of charge although you may want something beefier if you're worried about extended outages. As above though, you may find that you lose connectivity anyway depending on your area.
 
I'd thought about this previous and assumed that whether its BT or a separate fibre network, that they all have various routers and splitters going all the way back to the central "exchange", and unless each and every one of those in the path has an independant source of power, that it'll not resolve the issue by having a UPS at the property ?, depending of course whether the outage is just at a street level or somewhat more widespread ?
 
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The P in GPON stands for passive. Other than in very rural locations, the Openreach fibre network has nothing in it that requires power other than the ONT in your house and the equipment installed in the exchange.
 
Caged said:
The P in GPON stands for passive. Other than in very rural locations, the Openreach fibre network has nothing in it that requires power other than the ONT in your house and the equipment installed in the exchange.
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Thanks, that's good info, I had assumed that there were various fibre optic splitters/routers between the exchange and my house connection that required power.

Is that likely the case for other suppliers using their own infrastructure, i.e. that anything inbetween the exchange and the house are non-powered ?
 
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My FTTP works in a power cut 100%.

You just need to power the fibre modem and then your router I guess.

I have a petrol generator, mainly as I work from home. I've used it once we had a power cut for a few hours, run an extension lead to fibre router and modem, then another up to my work equipment (laptop+screens), worked a treat.


.
 
tangey said:
Thanks, that's good info, I had assumed that there were various fibre optic splitters/routers between the exchange and my house connection that required power.

Is that likely the case for other suppliers using their own infrastructure, i.e. that anything inbetween the exchange and the house are non-powered ?
Click to expand...

Completely depends on the provider. Some of them put all their equipment into street cabinets rather than datacentres or exchange buildings, so those will fail if the mains supply goes out for longer than their batteries can last.
 
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