I get complete blackouts at least once a month... And have 3 PCs and 5 monitors... And several modems and routers... On 8 APC 1500 equivalent... Which gives me > 60 minutes of battery power. I have the Peplink 30 Triple WAN router... With cable and 2 DSL services... AND MY INTERNET HAS NEVER GONE DOWN IN A BLACKOUT.
Depends on a few factors. Is your power, cable, and phone service run above or below ground ? If the phone and cable and power are all on a utility pole that gets knocked down in a crash then you are sol. I had this happen once when trading. I run both dsl and cable and in the event of a power failure I have the dsl modem running off of ups. My reason is when you lose power, most of the time you can still call in to report it using a non cordless phone, so in theory you should still be able to get dsl service and the few times my power has went out the dsl worked perfectly except for the one time where a pole was hit by a car near the house and killed everything.
This is all you need. http://green.yahoo.com/blog/ecogeek/864/a-prius-can-power-your-home-in-a-snowstorm.html
I used to have both DSL and cable internet but after hurricane Ike shutdown Houston and my home for over 3 weeks I dumped Comcast internet and now use a Verizon USB modem for backup service. Three days after the hurricane I moved out of Houston w/laptop in hand till power lines could be restored to my home. DSL/phones worked but Comcast was down. The problem is I moved to a house that was out in the country with no internet service. I first purchased an AT&T USB modem for my laptop but it was totally useless. A 20K modem performed better than AT&T's data service. I later learned that AT&T lost a few towers in the storm so that could have been the cause of their poor performance. Since AT&T was useless, I ended up with a Verizon USB modem. It performed flawlessly. Charts updated real time with data from iqfeed and IB worked without a problem. Now if I lose DSL at home I just plug in my Verizon USB modem and reconnect to the internet. Although Comcast internet is a faster service I suppose it's safer to have two different methods of accessing the internet.
Thanks for the feedback. I run a Hotbrick dual WAN with cable and DSL feeds in the city. So far my cable tends to go out when there are roadworks, and DSL drops occasionally, but I've not had both die on me together, which is good news. The failover is flawless. Wondering if it makes sense to replace one of these feeds with EVDO, which I'm assuming has cell tower vulnerability. Also wondering if EVDO is affected by call volume at each tower, since call volume spikes during blackouts.
$60/month Comcast was around $50 but it's not portable. Now I use the Verizon modem whenever I'm away from home.
DeeDeeTwo - Just trying to clarify....do you have 8 APC 1500s equivalent? or just one? I have 7 monitors, 2 PCs, and a cable modem that I want to back up. Power outages here usually dont last more than a few minutes, but I want enough to last 15 - 20 just in case. Thanks
If anyone serious about backup power, should considering stand-by generator, dual fuel; both natural gas + gasoline. If your home has natural gas pipeline, get one stand-by generator, do it professional installations on your power line, it will switch on in 10-15 seconds.
A generator is a good idea. While I have a UPS that is good for a few hours, the ice storm we had last week knocked out power to most houses for days. Fortunately, both my dsl and cable connections still worked.