Electronics > Power/Renewable Energy/EV's

brief power outage dunks landline service for hours

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dbctronic:
This has happened in my area several times in the last year. We get a brief power outage, usually only a few seconds. After that, the cordless phone indicates 'line in use', and there is no dial tone. Also, internet does not work. A call to the phone company may or may not result in a 'known service outage' message. It takes anywhere from a few hours to two days to get voice service back, and usually internet service is restored later.
The last time, two days ago, we went down to the exchange building, which is a mile away, and caught a technician who had been dispatched. He vaguely blamed it on 'power surges'. Does anybody know what the real problem is? If it's surges, why are they happening so frequently now?

Poroit:
G'day dbctronic,

Does this problem only occur during your Summer months when load is higher?

What USA state are you in?

xrunner:

--- Quote from: dbctronic on November 01, 2024, 11:51:37 pm ---This has happened in my area several times in the last year. We get a brief power outage, usually only a few seconds. After that, the cordless phone indicates 'line in use', and there is no dial tone. Also, internet does not work. A call to the phone company may or may not result in a 'known service outage' message. It takes anywhere from a few hours to two days to get voice service back, and usually internet service is restored later.
The last time, two days ago, we went down to the exchange building, which is a mile away, and caught a technician who had been dispatched. He vaguely blamed it on 'power surges'. Does anybody know what the real problem is? If it's surges, why are they happening so frequently now?

--- End quote ---

Not enough information to begin with. You mention "landline service" but also internet is impacted. Are these not two separate physical connections to your house? Moreover, are they the same service provider for both landline and internet? I wouldn't think the phone Co. "exchange" would impact internet directly due to a power glitch, although the internet signal to your house can go down for a little bit due to the fact the internet equipment in the field does use power ...

The last time I had internet service over a landline was the old DSL provided by the phone company, and before that of course dial-up connection.

dbctronic:
@Poirot and @xrunner:

Voice is VoIP, comes in on the same wires as internet.
Last instance was on a 75 degree day, and we've generally had a very cool spring and summer, so not really any days when air conditioners should have buckled the grid. And utility companies in general seem very closemouthed about any problems they are having, can't get real answers from them. Most of these incidents involve power going down for just a few seconds, so it's like they're switching grid sections in and out, but I don't know why. The fact that getting the exchange up and running is more than just some rebooting - took three hours to get VoIP back and 12 for internet - makes me think the servers are not well protected and some are getting fried.

edpalmer42:
Sounds like your phone company is cutting corners on backup power.  If servers go down and have to be restored from backups that can be time consuming.  If the telephone switch goes down, that's even worse.  They're designed to be started once and run forever.  Fast startup just isn't a thing.

Does your state have some kind of telecom regulatory committee that you can complain to?  If not, then maybe the FCC?  Keep records of the outages and when you can show a pattern, file a complaint.

Edit:
This is definitely a '911' issue.  Brief power outages are common in emergency situations.  So just when you really need 911 it's not available??  I'd like to see your telco justify that!

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