Post Storm Amy now looking at options for power packs plus keeping the broadband working. We were down for about 40 hours, but there are still a few remote places still without power 4 days later. One of the biggest frustrations was the ability to cook a more substantial meal, plus lack of general internet access / WiFi calling as mobile network was down.
Anyone got any recommendations for a power pack? I’ve got a couple of smaller ones, but having something more substantial to run something like a small microwave or slow cooker could be handy. I was looking at an Anker or Jackery 1000W unit, so quite a hefty unit. Got a gas camping stove for boiling water etc but being able to cook a more substantial meal would be handy when it gets cold. Know a few people with generators, so getting a recharge shouldn’t be a problem.
We have fibre broadband to the house and heard from a few sources that if we’d had a working power supply to the incoming box and the router we could have had working internet and wifi? Anyone able to confirm this as the mobile phone network was down locally and one of the biggest frustrations was a lack of a means to communicate or access information. I can see a few plug in UPS units online, but most don’t appear to run for very long.
I use an Anker 800 plus unit when off grid camping. It can run a kettle or coffee machine but will hammer the battery, 5 to 10% for a boil.
You would get away with a slow cooker but need to see what the wattage is to see if you'll get 5 hours run time. Less than 100w you'll be OK.
We lost power, ran the router, laptops and phones etc off an anker c1000 and had broadband and wifi. would have lasted a few days easily. We camp so have stoves and a woodburner for heat but the powerbank wouldnt last very long if using it to cook.
Just in case of a longer outage when the zombies come, and because I do love a gadget, I've ordered a small 2kw generator that runs on propane or petrol. I reckon that could keep me running an airfryer or slow cooker using it to recharge the powerbank for an hour or so when it ran down
I think the anker can be used as a UPS as well and the solar panels seem to work in the right conditions
APC is my go-to, certainly in the corporate world.
Whether or not your Internet connection would still work rather depends on what's going on at the other end of the cable.
Powerwall or similar? Ours kept the house ‘alive’ including modem, cooking, washing, drying, and let our builder continue working after a local power cable got chopped in a road works incident a couple of years back and took all day to get repaired.
Why not just get a generator?
One of the biggest frustrations was the ability to cook a more substantial meal, plus lack of general internet access / WiFi calling as mobile network was down.
What are you thinking of cooking?! You can do a lot with a twin burner camping stove.
For power you may just be better off with a generator perhaps? [much longer run times]
It's all well and good getting power to your modem/router but, as Cougar quite rightly said, there are very likely to be issues elsewhere that are out of your control - for example the extremely high risk of a fallen branch taking out a fibre cable somewhere along the line.
There is a solution for that though. We had a fibre outage in August for 10 days thanks to someone knocking down a pole carrying our fibre so I went and bought a Starlink Mini. Frankly it's brilliant - it gets online within one or two minutes, has it's own wifi router built in (or you can plug it into your own router) and, for us, it's 3 times faster than our fibre connection!
It's a pretty small unit so you can take it pretty much anywhere - I recently took mine in my carry on bag to Croatia! They run on 12-30v DC and draw just 22w once connected, so you can power it from various power banks etc. I bought a Makita tool battery adapter for £8. They are probably the solution if you need to stay connected.
The telephone exchange likely has a generator. Most fibre is laid in buried ducts. Powering the ONT and router should provide a connection, that should be easy off a battery. The other requirements would make me lean towards getting a generator. If you live somewhere remote with vulnerable infrastructure it seems like a good investment.
For power you may just be better off with a generator perhaps? [much longer run times]
This, really. I've been tempted to get one cos if we lose power we also lose water (we run a borehole pump for us and next door).
We use an "smart" APC. I have our two NAS boxes plugged into it, so I can shut them down properly in case of a power outage. Then we run a single deco either to the fibre link (which obv we have to power) or a spare SIM based router if the fibre is down. That lasts around 4-5 hours from memory which is enough for most outages around here.
Mostly I want the internet so I can see when the outage is going to be done as a normal phone doesn't get a workable 4G signal where we live.
Also bought a load of LED light/torches a couple of years ago. Keep those charged up especially in the winter months.
We did look at one of those big battery packs, but couldn't really justify it. I think the APC was about £150 with a decent size battery and the app functionality to see how much it has left.
The telephone exchange likely has a generator. Most fibre is laid in buried ducts.
For fibre internet, aren't you going to also be reliant on any back-up power in the local relay cabinet (I'm pretty sure FTTC relies on power in the cabinet, I'm not 100% sure about FTTP). A quick search suggests that they only have around 30 minutes backup (presumably that's on a fresh set of batteries, no idea how good Openreach are about replacing any backup batteries).
For fibre internet, aren't you going to also be reliant on any back-up power in the local relay cabinet (I'm pretty sure FTTC relies on power in the cabinet, I'm not 100% sure about FTTP).
Agree for FTTC, my understanding is that isn't the case for FTTP. I think the solution for vulnerable customers without backup copper phone line is to provide UPS for the network kit in the house.
Most fibre is laid in buried ducts
Absolutely zero ducts around here - everything is up on poles.
Fair enough, we are in a village and it is all ducted except the final connection which is a mixture. Even the more rural bits I think they buried, but the terrain is easy and verges next to roads were simple to trench. Different solutions in different areas.
This has got me thinking. We live in a large town but tend to lose power when there's a big storm/ it rains a lot/ someone farts particularly strongly. Mobile signal is awful round us too. A power pack to run modem and router would be useful, although they're in separate parts of the house annoyingly.
More frustrating, I got someone in to talk solar and batteries, and learned that apparently if the electricity supply gets knocked out, your battery will not power your home; some electricity supplier BS. Grr
Different solutions in different areas.
Yep, maybe in your local vicinity they've done some ducts but obvs there's variation everywhere. We're pretty rural but not as much as many other places. Fact is that there's a lot of fibre up on poles.
(I would have thought that a lot of power outages are caused by fallen branches taking out overhead cables - and if the power is up on a pole then the fibre/telephone might well be also. 🤷♂️)
Agree for FTTC, my understanding is that isn't the case for FTTP. I think the solution for vulnerable customers without backup copper phone line is to provide UPS for the network kit in the house.
FTTP will still go via a cabinet somewhere. My IP address comes up hundreds of miles away which is presumably where the ISP's 'exchange' is, there's not going to be one fiber running all the way there, somewhere locally it's going into a cabinet with a router.
Agree for FTTC, my understanding is that isn't the case for FTTP. I think the solution for vulnerable customers without backup copper phone line is to provide UPS for the network kit in the house.
FTTP will still go via a cabinet somewhere. My IP address comes up hundreds of miles away which is presumably where the ISP's 'exchange' is, there's not going to be one fiber running all the way there, somewhere locally it's going into a cabinet with a router.
Well clearly.
FTTC goes to those intermediate cabinets that need their own power supply:
FTTP goes to splitters that don't (AFAIK) :
I think the solution for vulnerable customers without backup copper phone line is to provide UPS for the network kit in the house
Aren't all copper lines being switched off in the coming couple of years? Anyway, providing power is only one part of the jigsaw... there are many points of failure.
A lot of semi-rural Suffolk has overhead fibre from both BT and City Fibre as the poles are all ready there and it's cheaper than digging holes.
We have FTTP here, it is all buried in ducts - there is a ‘ring main’ all the way around the island.
There are significant demands for a back-up generator to be installed by the local phone mast - only one of the 4 masts on the island has a back-up. Those few folks with old analogue copper phone lines were still unable to make and receive calls.
My neighbour plus some others have generators - they’d be quite happy for me to plug in a power pack for an hour for a recharge.
I do have a double ring gas burner in my campervan which is in the garage - bit of a faff to get the van out to cook a meal like we had to on Sunday.
Long term is to get solar and power wall in the garage for when we get an EV, but no immediate plans.
I do have a double ring gas burner in my campervan which is in the garage - bit of a faff to get the van out to cook a meal like we had to on Sunday.
Just buy another if it's an issue. If you want a battery or generator to power all/part of the house you'll need to jump through a few hoops - i.e. having a changeover switch installed that stops the battery/generator back feeding into the network and zapping the poor sod trying to reconnect you. It's not insignificant.
Also if you've got a camper then a Starlink Mini makes even more sense as you can take it on your travels.
Those few folks with old analogue copper phone lines were still unable to make and receive calls.
That implies your exchange had no backup power either, unless the lines were severed. Do you know people on FTTP with power that could get online?
DJI power 1000 owner here. Outputs enough power for the majority of the electrical kitchen stuff. Able to power TV and internet for a good while. Can be sub £500 when on offer. Superseded by a V2 model and another 2kw version.
When we had a power cut recently, I ran a extension cord out the window, and powered the networking stuff from the leisure battery in the campervan.
If you want a battery or generator to power all/part of the house you'll need to jump through a few hoops - i.e. having a changeover switch installed that stops the battery/generator back feeding into the network and zapping the poor sod trying to reconnect you. It's not insignificant.
Oooooh, useful to know
All you rural folk with full fibre but leccy supplies that fail. Never had more than a few minutes power loss in 30 years in this house, but our internet is only the copper from the cabinet down the road. We may get full fibre soon as we've had notification. Mad isn't it ?