Jared Mauch wrote:
Regarding landline service, this can fail for many of the common reasons it 
does are the same reasons that IP service may fail.  The failure modes can 
depend on a variety of circumstances from the physical layer (e.g.: audible 
static on the line) that cause your ear to retrain, which may cause a DSL 
device to comparably retrain.  The same is true for shared medium such as CATV 
but this has other problems as well, if not well isolated, somebody can short 
out the segment or send garbage at the wrong channel, etc.

I don't doubt it. However my practical experience is such that 100% of the time (I lost count after 20 or so, in a decade) I experienced a power failure the phone would still work. I am sure I am not the only one.

And these concern power outages in various locations, from the mountains of Coastal Oregon to the Monterey Bay Area. And from trees falling over the power lines to exploding transformers (two at once actually :-).

I guess the phone companies just do a better job at keeping up their infrastructure. I don't know how often the phone cable is buried compared to where the power cables are exposed to the elements. But I would think that (more frequently) burying the phone cables is one reason it's more reliable.

That's why (burying cables) in the Netherlands you would get a power outage maybe once or twice a decade as opposed to every fortnight.

Greetings,
Jeroen

--
Earthquake Magnitude: 4.0
Date: Wednesday, May  2, 2012 12:33:29 UTC
Location: Vancouver Island, Canada region
Latitude: 50.6619; Longitude: -129.8861
Depth: 10.00 km

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