About a year and a half ago, the local telco upgraded our DSLAM to a fiber connection. The extra internet speed has been nice, but I was under the assumption that the wire POTS side of the service was "always on".
We recently had an ice storm that knocked out power for a couple of days. I was surprised to find out that my POTS connection stayed live for about two hours, after which the dialtone and the 48VDC line voltage just disappeared. My attitude has always been that a POTS line was worth keeping as an emergency backup, no matter the power situation. Apparently, the DSLAM now has minimal backup power and when it's gone, you're gone.
So why on earth does anyone even use POTS, if this is the current practice?
We recently had an ice storm that knocked out power for a couple of days. I was surprised to find out that my POTS connection stayed live for about two hours, after which the dialtone and the 48VDC line voltage just disappeared. My attitude has always been that a POTS line was worth keeping as an emergency backup, no matter the power situation. Apparently, the DSLAM now has minimal backup power and when it's gone, you're gone.
So why on earth does anyone even use POTS, if this is the current practice?