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My favorite piece of everyday 'overengineering' is that old fashion phone lines basically always worked even during a complete power outage.
by dagw 6y ago
My favorite piece of everyday 'overengineering' is that old fashion phone lines basically always worked even during a complete power outage.
- zaarn 6y agoPhone lines are their own power grid. It can have outages too, but since they don't share infrastructure too much with HV lines, it's less likely both fail at the same time.
- agumonkey 6y agocopper lines are getting replaced by .. fiber it seems, i hope it retains that feature
- exhilaration 6y agoNope, the ONT (Optical Network Terminal) that Verizon FIOS installed has a backup battery, but once that's exhausted it goes dark like the rest of the house. They also removed the copper line during installation, it seems like Verizon at least doesn't want to keep supporting their copper network where FIOS is deployed.
- Accujack 6y agoTechnically, it does, but it's difficult to run anything on microwatts of power generated by photovoltaic cells. A better standard fiber to premises standard would include a power connection, but that would greatly increase prices, too.
- tim333 6y agoCellphones usually work too, at least for a while.
- TheCapn 6y agoThat's because cell broadcast stations have big ol' UPS hookups and even diesel generators as backups