this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2024
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Copper lines have backup in the network to power them during outages but fiber relies on power inside the house which is unlikely to have a battery backup in the event of a blackout
We're currently phasing out copper connections in the UK. It's now at the "stop-sell" phase for several regions (new copper connections cannot be provisioned).
When fibre connections first arrived, OpenReach (the main network) would supply the connection with a battery backup unit (BBU).
Nowadays, they're only supplied to users with specific needs.
I've considered fitting a UPS to my networking, but decided it just wasn't worth it.
We've had one power cut in the last 5 years, vs the cost of running a UPS for all that time, I'm not that fussed!
I've been running my modem/router on a UPS for a few years now and it's great not having my connection dropping for brief flickers. It's also nice knowing that the signal quality is good, regardless of what is coming out of the wall or if my freezer, fridge, microwave, and oven elements happen to cycle on at the same time. That probably wouldn't cause damage, but it might leave the device in a state that requires a reboot.
Not just houses, the power requirements in eg regional switch buildings are serious too, not something a battery will sustain for too long.
Here in the UK, our exchange buildings have emergency battery and diesel generator backups so if power does go out for an extended period, then at least the head ends and exchange equipment will still function.
Even a relatively small building will have a backup generator with a 1000 litre fuel tank.
Ziply fiber ONT have a little battery on them for exactly this. Seems to last around 4 hours in my experience. Seems reasonable to me.
Yes and no, you'd need a modem with a backup too. Where I am ONT and Modem are generally provider equipment and serial/ addresses for ONTs are used to enable them so they couldn't just use anything.
They did get an all in one with a battery but the regulations wouldn't allow for it because it closed the customer in to that provider.
Ziply ONT does the fiber translation and just spits out ethernet which you can plug into anything you want. I use it with a little 4port 2.5G router box and opensense. So I've just got a basic APC UPS for my router to keep it alive as well