Last weekend an ice storm caused a tree to fall directly across a 15kv utility line in our yard. After an impressive light show, about 700 of my neighbors and I were left without utility power for a day.
My backup generator kicked in a minute afterwards to give us household power, but there are a few circuits in our house that are not tied in to the generator.
I checked the phone and it was dead.
(Given, this is an older style wall phone that have keys that light up when the receiver is lifted).
I then ran an extension cord to the cable modem in my office thinking that would power it up since its a voip data system.
Still dead.
Utility power came back the next day and all returned to normal but I was left with a few questions.
What supplies power to the phones if not the cable modem itself? Is it like a poe system where there is a external power supply injector that powers the phone wires?
The cable modem even has a backup battery that's supposed to keep the phone working when power is lost.
I imagine that would only work with an old phone that doesn't require (48v?) power?
I understand that the phone would not work if the isp/cable provider was down, but I expected my old phone to at least light up when I picked it up.
My backup generator kicked in a minute afterwards to give us household power, but there are a few circuits in our house that are not tied in to the generator.
I checked the phone and it was dead.
(Given, this is an older style wall phone that have keys that light up when the receiver is lifted).
I then ran an extension cord to the cable modem in my office thinking that would power it up since its a voip data system.
Still dead.
Utility power came back the next day and all returned to normal but I was left with a few questions.
What supplies power to the phones if not the cable modem itself? Is it like a poe system where there is a external power supply injector that powers the phone wires?
The cable modem even has a backup battery that's supposed to keep the phone working when power is lost.
I imagine that would only work with an old phone that doesn't require (48v?) power?
I understand that the phone would not work if the isp/cable provider was down, but I expected my old phone to at least light up when I picked it up.