Hello!
I wanted to create this post to see if I can get an answer, as google seems to give mixed results. This winter, I was thinking of getting a small generator incase our power goes out. We live in a rural area, so I have propane for heat, but was more worried about keeping devices charged and some lights.
I was curious if we had a power outage, if I powered my modem- would I still be able to have internet access? We have Xfinity but I wasn’t sure if there is a total power outage, if the internet would go down either until the local system is brought back up or if it had batteries/self generators so the network stays up during an outage.
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I went through this same thing. I bought an APC uninterruptible power supply and keep the modem and router plugged into. Also routing coaxial and Ethernet cables through it so it is 100% connected to the PSU. if power went out we were still able to maintain internet and charge our devices for several hours. However this is negated if there is an outage with your ISP. So yes and no. But for my experience it has been mostly yes to having Internet during a power outage.
It depends on your ISP but it’s likely.
I have a huge propane generator for extended outages… The UPS systems I have now will keep things powered for over 3 hours with full load, but I have non-critical devices power off after 10 minutes and that extends the batteries to ~12 hours.
Still, if the power is out for 40 minutes, the generator kicks on and takes over. Internet stays up and with two 1000 gal tanks, I can run the generator for months without refueling at full load. Having the extended runtime batteries allows for generator maintenance windows and such.
Comcast might work. Most of their infrastructure has small battery backups, but will eventually go down after a few hours. For long term outages they will send out techs to hook up generators to bring the infrastructure back online. But for outages that last for less than a day, the internet will stop working after a few hours.
Depends. Our local coax service goes out when we lose power.
My experience has been:
- Coax connections will just stop. These rely on boosters and repeaters that are powered by the grid.
- Cable TV will work for an hour or two.
- VoIP phones will last until the UPS battery dies.
- Cellular will work, but will be bogged down and possibly revert to older, slower modes.
So your cellular hotspot is your best bet during a regional power outage, but be aware that even this will be slower than normal and may even stop working after hours or days, as cell sites lose backup power.
I live in N GA and this last summer, we had a storm that took out power for two days.
We have AT&T fiber Internet service.
I had a portable generator running, principally, so we didn’t lose our refrigerated and frozen food. It also powered the fiber modem, the Internet modem, my router, Wi-Fi A.P. and everything critical in my home office. The Internet worked just fine…but we were lucky. The same storm took out a lot of infrastructure that provides comm to our area. AT&T fiber was not affected (presumably because it is largely in the ground).
I was in the middle of that storm and yes ATT worked once they repaired the fiber, but Xfinity was mostly out for much longer. They even put their generators in our neighborhood to power their amplifiers.
Since I think most cable providers now provide phone over cable, they are generally pretty good about having service in an outage for the purpose of emergency services. And many of the combined data/voice modems they offer have battery backup options as well specifically for this purpose.
I live in a relatively dense suburban neighborhood. We have had extended power outages In our area, and I can tell you for a fact, our phone company apparently has battery backup capability at our DSLAM that lasts about 12 hours. If an outage goes longer than that, they can attach a trailer-mounted generator to power it, (as long as they keep it fueled)
During the great northeast blackout, I saw a Comcast truck parked next to a little worksite generator (probably 500-1000 watts) chained to the pole, I assume it was powering a signal amplifier on the pole.
Comcast had battery backups on all power supplies in the field. Generally about three hours of run time depending on the charge state and battery condition.
My xfinity modem/router does not have a built in battery backup. I have it plugged in a 500VA UPS. It will run for many hours after a power outage. That is the only device plugged into the UPS.
When the power goes out the connection point goes down so I lose internet acceess
A couple of weeks ago power went out in .y neighborhood but Spectrum’s network was still like. Since I had my modem and router hooked up to a UPS my network was still up.
If you have cellular/5g during an outage you will also have a landline connection
Mine does. I have a battery backup on my modem and router and it will run for approx 4 hours.
In my neighborhood if power goes so does Internet, but not Visa versa. This is because the equipment that my cable company uses needs power. In fact, on my property the power/telephone pole have a power meter on it that is for charging my local cable company. I know because I asked.
We use a TiVo DVR as well a local Plex server so when power or Internet goes out we have content.
I didn’t have luck with power loss in certain areas.
Spectrum at my last house would go out during widespread power loss. It doesn’t go out at my current house during widespread power loss… At least not on the short term.
I have starlink as a backup in the event spectrum goes out.