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I do not really get a lot of sleep.
Most nights, I am lucky if I get six hours. So, imagine the cob webs I have this morning after being awoken this morning at about 4:30am (two hours after I feel asleep) to 75 mph winds and hail ripping through. Honestly, I thought my roof was a goner (actually only lost a few shingles). But this isn’t a sympathy post for me; it is another reminder of why VoIP is still not a pure-play solution for residential users.
You see with these winds and hail (yes, just yesterday it was sunny and 65 degrees out…go figure), knocked the power out for over 45,000, myself included in the area.
No power. No internet. No internet, no VoIP.
Lucky for me, I have a land line and a cellphone, but it is mornings like this that remind me that for residential users and businesses alike, VoIP is still not a reliable stand-alone solution.
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Hey Garret,
Didn’t you lose power at work last winter also??
You would think in the 21st century it would not happen so often…
Wishing you a good rest tonight!
Moshe
Moshe:
We most certainly did. In Buffalo (as of late) we are having some of the most unpredictable weather ever. One day it is 65 degrees (in January), next day there are hurricane winds and temperatures in the “teens”. This is end of the world stuff.
Aw, c’mon Garrett. I get really tired of people saying that we need to keep out POTS lines when we don’t. Did you actually lose your internet access? Or did your gear just go down in the power outage?
One of things I learned years ago when I had Sprint’s ION service is that power should be considered when deploying VOIP solutions.
The four line ION interface device came with a built-in battery backup. Heck, so did my now 5 year old Panasonic KSU.
We went wholly VOIP over two years ago, and in doing it we took steps to ensure that our network and phones would stay up when the power went down. It’s not difficult. It’s not even expensive.
BTW, I’m from the Niagara area, Canadian side, and lived in Toronto for 15 years.
@Michael -
Nice to hear from you.
Again, pure VoIP is not the way to go for the large majority of residential users.
Why?
You write about it in your post, “The trouble is that (buying a UPS) with a traditional POTS line you don’t have to think about this. It’s assumed. If you go wholly VOIP it becomes your responsibility, not unlike what the telco calls the “inside wiring†on a traditional phone line. So think ahead.”
People don’t (and shouldn’t have to) think about their services working. They shouldn’t have to buy more and do more to mimic their previous calling environment.
As an aside, I have Time Warner business cable service. Power was out for 12 hours. No power, no Internet. No Internet, No VoIP. No VoIP no phones calls.
I would have had to have had a decent UPS to keep me up for 12 hours…and that is presuming that Time Warner did not go down.
I don’t think it’s so back and white. Cell phones are pervasive these days. When my wife and I discussed going 100% VOIP at home we decided that if the home & office phones are out then we’d use our cell phones. The extra cost of the land line was simply unwarranted.
A large part of our motivation remains avoidance of AT&T, the only LEC in our area.
@ Michael:
I guess what I am trying to say is that you are not an average consumer (nor am I). Average consumers either do not know or do not want to know about what needs to be done in order to safe guard themselves from the potential downsides of VoIP.
I use my cellphone as my “back-up”, but again, most consumers want a low-cost replication of what they already have. When they do not get that they are not happy and they certainly do not want to “buy more” or change a habit in order to compensate.
We still have a ways to go before VoIP is ready for the average consumer to use as their only solution.
I think you’ll find that a surprisingly large number of “typical” consumers have acquired cordless phones or phone/answering machine combos that require AC power. This also negates the benefit of a POTS line for many. I think simple awareness is key.
I brings to mind a fine question. If Sprint’s ION DSL service could provide a battery backed up CPE in 2001 why doesn’t anyone do so today?
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