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Thread: Power outages and cable internet
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2018-04-14, 10:31 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Washington D.C.
- Gender
Power outages and cable internet
So I rarely have power outages, and when we do, it's usually fairly short, and nearly always on account of storms. We have cable internet, which is the best option for where we live. If I were to get a UPS and hook the modem and router up to it, in theory, we should keep the internet connectivity and wifi even through the power outage, meaning any battery-operated devices would be unaffected. Is there any reason why this wouldn't work? I don't know how the cable system works, but I'd imagine it would be unaffected by the power grid.
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
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2018-04-15, 12:28 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2010
Re: Power outages and cable internet
That depends on how well their system's power is backed up. I have a UPS powering my DSL modem and home router. During an outage I can keep internet connectivity until the UPS runs out after two hours or so.
I don't know if phone companies are required or incentivized to so thoroughly back up their power. Cable companies aren't fully considered common carriers, so if that has anything to do with it, they may not have to do the same as phone providers.
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2018-04-15, 01:10 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Gender
Re: Power outages and cable internet
I don't know how the cable system works either, but if it's anything like the phone system there'll be a distribution cabinet somewhere in your neighbourhood whose job is to split out the signal from the main trunk down to all the individual houses. If that cabinet loses power then you've lost your cable regardless of what you do in your own house. I would at least ask the question of your cable provider if this is likely to work before you shell out for a possibly useless UPS.
By the way, how long are the power outages we're talking here? If it's a couple of minutes then powering the modem and router via UPS would be easily done. If it's a couple of hours then things get trickier, because you need to make sure the battery capacity of the UPS is sufficient to see you through.
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2018-04-15, 01:12 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Washington D.C.
- Gender
Re: Power outages and cable internet
See, that's exactly what I hope for 99% of the time, powers out for less than an hour, and that would make it suck a lot less. No way to find out until I try, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't a fool's errand to start with. And worst-case scenario, I have a UPS to plug other stuff into.
What's the power ratings on yours?Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2