Re: home router battery backup

[Mark Tinka]

On 1/18/22 22:27, Jordan Hazen wrote:


Yes, but separate from their absolute low-voltage cutoff meant to
protect battery cells, these hybrid storage products include a
user-adjustable reserve setpoint, meant to balance their backup
role with grid support and peak-shaving.


Yes. In the traditional battery inverter world, it's called "increased 
self-consumption" :-).




Owners of home-scale PV+battery systems often sign up for
time-of-use utility tariffs, where per-kWh rates are high during
peak periods (day and evening), but very low at night.  With a
large enough system at full charge, such homes can then run
autonomously for several hours after sunset, covering most or all
of the peak-demand period, before switching back to grid power, and
optionally recharging at night when rates and demand are low (if
local solar production alone isn't enough replenishment).


Indeed.

Obviously, if your goal is to reduce power costs, then this is fine. The 
potential downside is consistent cycling of the battery, which will 
reduce it lifespan.


Then again, batteries are getting cheaper (at least the LFP chemistry), 
so perhaps it might not matter much after you get a solid 5 - 8 years, 
at the very least, out of them.




Of course, letting the battery discharge all the way to its 0%
safety limit in its daily demand shifting role, besides prematurely
aging the cells, would leave the owner without backup were an
outage to strike at a bad time, in late afternoon or evening.


Agreed.

Between the battery and inverter OEM's, they might not let you get that low.



With the utility paying for and managing distributed batteries
itself, though, they'd want to derive the greatest possible return
on their investment, and so probably tend to set that reserve-limit
very low.


I know that there are some markets where home owners are given 
incentives to buy batteries that they can use to take some load off the 
grid. Do you know of any markets where this is actually being done by 
the utility, including remote control?




Some utilities have been experimenting with using these storage
systems as part of demand-side management / load shedding, where
during peak periods they can signal for buildings capable of
operating from battery power to start doing do for a set period of
time.  With enough aggregate storage available, this could avoid
having to fire up an expensive-to-operate natural gas peaker plant.


I know the Australians have been fiddling around with remote management 
of HVAC and water heating systems as part of their demand-side 
management program. However, I don't think there is sufficient scale to 
help them reduce production enough so as to continue their use of fossil 
fuels.


Theoretically, it's a great idea. I just don't see it in practice at 
scale, for an entire nation, managed by the utility.




The battery system owner would receive bill credits, lower rates,
or other incentives in exchange for allowing this, similar to how
some data centers and other industrial building will be compensated
for proactively switching to generator power when asked to during a
high-demand period.


I've always been a supporter for micro grids... either at the home 
level, or the neighborhood level. It's easier to manage your usage when 
you know how much energy you have for the day.


I don't think renewables at grid scale will work, because the user has 
no visibility of generation capacity and constraints. They'll just keep 
flipping switches.


So if we can put generation responsibility in the hands of the user, 
there is a decent chance that renewables may actually work. Plus, we use 
less land.




Is anyone aware of data centers yet leveraging battery storage for
a similar purpose?  It would make zero economic sense with
traditional lead-acid storage, of course, due to such batteries'
limited cycle life and intolerance of deep discharge.


I can't imagine any data centre using the battery for pure base load. 
Like they do with UPS's now, I'd expect the battery is really there to 
provide load management between grid loss and activation of the 
generator. You only need the battery for a few seconds to a couple of 
minutes.


So no different from what they are currently doing with Lead Acid 
batteries, but with the benefit of more cycles, deeper discharging, 
higher energy density, less weight and less space, from Li-Ion.




Uilities are becoming increasingly hostile to solar net-metering,
where PV system owners are credited for excess energy supplied to
the grid during peak sun hours, then allowed to "draw this back" at
parity after sunset, using the grid as a sort of virtual battery.
They argue that such use incurs uncompensated costs (see "duck
curve"), and have successfully lobbied for tariff changes in some
areas to limit or end the practice.  Other locales have never had
net-metering.  On-site storage can be a good alternative to net
metering where it's unavailable, and is probably more beneficial to

Re: home router battery backup

[Mark Tinka]

On 1/18/22 23:17, Joe Maimon wrote:



The inverter in question is the one being utilized in conjunction with 
the powerwall, ats, solar array. All nicely done and reliable and 
wired in already and with proper capacity.


Being able to call for and get more DC power on demand would make this 
a true uninterruptible solution.


Running a gen to support the battery means the gen size does not need 
to correlate at all with the peaks and surges of demand and can run at 
maximum efficiency and we can avoid unbalanced leg problems and other 
voltage variation issues that can happen with portable gens.


Programming comes into play for automated monthly testing, capacity 
prediction, even spot costing of utility power. Between the grid, the 
solar array, time of day, season, weather, battery level, generator 
input, load characteristics, outage duration, grid costs/stresses 
there can be a lot of factors that might need a bit more balancing and 
programming than you might typically expect available from any half 
decent battery inverter, but might find a nice place in a truly fully 
integrated home UPS solution.


Integrate it enough and perhaps the gen/rectifier components would 
even fit into typical residential facilities spaces and this sort of 
setup could be all the more typical and standard.


I use SMA... both for PV and battery inversion. It's an AC-coupled 
system, with the battery inverter being at the core of the system.


Both the PV and battery inverters are highly-configurable, and out the 
box, will do a lot of things reasonably well.


However, it took me about 8 months to properly set this system up for 
our requirements, because, as you say, you need to get a lot of things 
right on a number of separate systems (in an AC-coupled design) to get 
the most out of your installation.


For us, we have a system large enough to be off-grid 100% of the time. 
However, we want to lengthen the lifespan of the battery, by keeping 
charge voltage low, and not discharging it too much. So we struck a 
balance between using the grid significantly less than we used to before 
we could self-generate, and keeping the battery voltage low (charge to 
about 78% SoC, discharge to about 65% SoC). Of course, in the case of a 
utility outage, we shall charge to 100%. Luckily, during those outages, 
we've not had to dip below 35% SoC when the outage is throughout the 
night, and into the morning when the sun is out. The pack is a 48V, 
33.6kWh, 700Ah system.


So yes, even the most sophisticated inverters may still need some user 
input. The most important thing is to understand what you want to get 
out of the system (do you want to go off-grid, do you want to stay 
on-grid but save a little utility cash or do you just want backup 
protection for a couple of hours?), find an inverter that can provide 
that, and spend several weeks to a few months fine-tuning the 
installation once the installers leave.


Mark.

Re: home router battery backup

[Mark Tinka]

On 1/18/22 22:31, Michael Thomas wrote:



I have a SolarEdge inverter and they are still working on the 
software. I don't know if that's true across their product line, but I 
would think that the software would be pretty portable.


SMA on this side. Highly configurable, and you don't even need to be 
next to it (all web-based).


Mark.

Re: home router battery backup

[Joe Maimon]

Mark Tinka wrote:



On 1/18/22 18:15, Joe Maimon wrote:



Now how about some programming available so you can decide what 
thresholds and conditions remote start your genny which powers the 
rectifier which substitutes|augments the solar array?


Any half decent battery inverters will be able to adequately support 
this, out the box.


Mark.




The inverter in question is the one being utilized in conjunction with 
the powerwall, ats, solar array. All nicely done and reliable and wired 
in already and with proper capacity.


Being able to call for and get more DC power on demand would make this a 
true uninterruptible solution.


Running a gen to support the battery means the gen size does not need to 
correlate at all with the peaks and surges of demand and can run at 
maximum efficiency and we can avoid unbalanced leg problems and other 
voltage variation issues that can happen with portable gens.


Programming comes into play for automated monthly testing, capacity 
prediction, even spot costing of utility power. Between the grid, the 
solar array, time of day, season, weather, battery level, generator 
input, load characteristics, outage duration, grid costs/stresses there 
can be a lot of factors that might need a bit more balancing and 
programming than you might typically expect available from any half 
decent battery inverter, but might find a nice place in a truly fully 
integrated home UPS solution.


Integrate it enough and perhaps the gen/rectifier components would even 
fit into typical residential facilities spaces and this sort of setup 
could be all the more typical and standard.


Joe

Re: home router battery backup

[Jordan Hazen]

On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 10:38:53AM -0500, Jay wrote:
> Greetings,
> I am a home user.  Much of my home has been rewired to run off of 
> 12-volts D.C. from a large 1200 Amp/Hour LiFePO4 battery bank that is 
> recharged using Solar.  All my lighting, ceiling fans, water pump, Ham 
> radio gear, weather alert radio, USB charging stations, alarm system, 
> security cameras and DVR, my wife's CPAP machine, 40-inch flat screen TV, 
> ROKU streaming device, etc. all now run off 12 VDC.

What was required to run your 40" television on 12V?  Did you
replace its internal PSU, or just feed it a boosted DC voltage?

(For anyone unaware, most, but not all, switchmode supplies are
happy running from DC in the same general range as their marked AC
voltage.  Some are polarity-sensitive, and active PFC occasionally
causes trouble.  Also, small commodity MSW inverters can be easily
changed into 12V -> 160V or 12V -> 300V DC/DC boost converters by
disabling and bypassing their final chopper stage, at considerable
efficiency gain.  Just don't run the boosted DC through switches,
relays, or breakers meant for AC - these will quickly fail in such
use due to arcing and/or welded contacts! Fuse the DC-input side.)

I've gone down a similar path, standardizing on Anderson Powerpoles
for 12V distribution, but limited my scope to 24/7 loads, phones,
telecom/network/radio equipment, other low-wattage electronics, and
a small fraction of (LED) lighting, to avoid extending heavy-gauge
copper all over the house.  One motivation was to reduce the impact
if our main household inverter were to fail while operating off
grid.  Another was let that unit be turned off at night with little
inconvenience, or put into "search" mode where it switches on only
when detecting that an intermittent load wants to run, such as the
well pump or refrigerator.  Newer fridges with electronic controls
unfortunately don't like to operate in this mode, but have gained
enough efficiency to more than make up for standby inverter loss.

My 12V bank is still AGM lead-acid, but doesn't see frequent
discharge, usually floating from solar during the day and from a
central AC supply at night, providing the grid is up.  24V is
available too from the garage PV solar system batteries, though
only in two rooms.  This runs a 24V->12V DC/DC to power the 12V bus
(normally current-limited by PWM signal from the PV charge
controllers, based on available sun.  This makes better use of
limited PV power in morning & evening hours than the large Outback
Power hybrid inverter would, with its 40W standby loss.

To circle back somewhat to the original topic, Outback was acquired
by Alpha Power several years ago, but I haven't yet noticed much
integration between their traditional telco/MSO product line and
the Outback equipment.

> High consumption devices like stove, refrigerators, air
> conditioners, furnace, still run on AC but get *much* of their
> power from a 5kw Grid-Tied Solar array (Enphase IQ7
> microinverters) which I hope to soon add a battery backup to. 
> There is also a whole-house 4kw backup generator.  This is what
> is known as a "Hybrid" home :)

I installed a 120V-only protected loads subpanel next to our main
panel and moved most circuits over, to take advantage of the
Outback hybrid inverter's integral automatic transfer switch and
use it as an (almost) whole-house UPS.  240V circuits drop, but
little else does.  Most importantly, refrigeration and our
well-water pump (1hp, ~1200W draw, too large for practical DC
conversion) can remain powered indefinitely, whether anyone is home
or not.  Central HVAC is not backed up, but we can run a couple of
window units.

Due to its use of heavy 60A relays, the transfer time of this type
of inverter is a bit slow by UPS standards, roughly 30ms, but no
computers or other AC loads seem to mind.  Important gear is all on
12V anyway.  There is an alternate, zero-transfer-time mode of
operation where the inverter is kept constantly running in
phase-lock to incoming power, and steps in even before the
isolation relay fully opens.  This comes at the cost of 20+W of
additional 24/7 load, and may not entirely meet the letter of
UL1741 or IEEE1547 anti-backfeed requirements, so I opted against.

> ALL of my servers, workstations, routers/hubs, WiFi, are also converted 
> to run on 12VDC from this battery/solar plant.  In many cases it is just a 
> matter of adding a DC-DC buck/booster regulator that can be purchased on 
> Amazon for ten bucks, or so.  These generally take 8-40 volts input and 
> will deliver whatever voltage output that you desire.  Both my DSL and 
> FTTH are powered this way.

My sister-in-law bought an off-grid home whose previous owner had
wired every room for both 12VDC and 120VAC.  Lighting, fans, etc. 
were nearly all 12V.  This was nice at first, especially the old
and noisy MSW inverter, but did complicate their eventual upgrade
to a larger system and its required 48V battery bank.  They
required a 

Re: home router battery backup

[Michael Thomas]

On 1/18/22 12:24 PM, Mark Tinka wrote:



On 1/18/22 18:15, Joe Maimon wrote:



Now how about some programming available so you can decide what 
thresholds and conditions remote start your genny which powers the 
rectifier which substitutes|augments the solar array?


Any half decent battery inverters will be able to adequately support 
this, out the box.


I have a SolarEdge inverter and they are still working on the software. 
I don't know if that's true across their product line, but I would think 
that the software would be pretty portable.


Mike

Re: home router battery backup

[Jordan Hazen]

On Tue, Jan 18, 2022 at 05:11:57PM +0200, Mark Tinka wrote:
> 
> I don't use the Tesla Powerwall, but Li-Ion is generally the same 
> regardless of who packages it. The difference will be what the OEM 
> decides to set the low-voltage cut-off to on the inverter and/or BMS.

Yes, but separate from their absolute low-voltage cutoff meant to
protect battery cells, these hybrid storage products include a
user-adjustable reserve setpoint, meant to balance their backup
role with grid support and peak-shaving.

Owners of home-scale PV+battery systems often sign up for
time-of-use utility tariffs, where per-kWh rates are high during
peak periods (day and evening), but very low at night.  With a
large enough system at full charge, such homes can then run
autonomously for several hours after sunset, covering most or all
of the peak-demand period, before switching back to grid power, and
optionally recharging at night when rates and demand are low (if
local solar production alone isn't enough replenishment).

Of course, letting the battery discharge all the way to its 0%
safety limit in its daily demand shifting role, besides prematurely
aging the cells, would leave the owner without backup were an
outage to strike at a bad time, in late afternoon or evening.

With the utility paying for and managing distributed batteries
itself, though, they'd want to derive the greatest possible return
on their investment, and so probably tend to set that reserve-limit
very low.

Some utilities have been experimenting with using these storage
systems as part of demand-side management / load shedding, where
during peak periods they can signal for buildings capable of
operating from battery power to start doing do for a set period of
time.  With enough aggregate storage available, this could avoid
having to fire up an expensive-to-operate natural gas peaker plant.

The battery system owner would receive bill credits, lower rates,
or other incentives in exchange for allowing this, similar to how
some data centers and other industrial building will be compensated
for proactively switching to generator power when asked to during a
high-demand period.

Is anyone aware of data centers yet leveraging battery storage for
a similar purpose?  It would make zero economic sense with
traditional lead-acid storage, of course, due to such batteries'
limited cycle life and intolerance of deep discharge.

> I'm not sure how much the owner can configure a Tesla Powerwall, but 
> with other installations, you can decide when your battery kicks in to 
> run loads, or when it hands back to the grid or generator. This assumes 
> evening time, when solar irradiation is unavailable, of course, as that 
> is generally the preferred source of energy.

Uilities are becoming increasingly hostile to solar net-metering,
where PV system owners are credited for excess energy supplied to
the grid during peak sun hours, then allowed to "draw this back" at
parity after sunset, using the grid as a sort of virtual battery. 
They argue that such use incurs uncompensated costs (see "duck
curve"), and have successfully lobbied for tariff changes in some
areas to limit or end the practice.  Other locales have never had
net-metering.  On-site storage can be a good alternative to net
metering where it's unavailable, and is probably more beneficial to
grid stability.

> I've heard that Tesla will monitor the weather in your area to 
> "pre-charge" the Powerwall to account for possible power disruptions. 
> While I find that rather invasive, it's a cool feature for folk who 
> "don't want to know". Then again, I also hear that Tesla will limit or 
> withhold support and/or warranty if you do not connect your Powerwall to 
> the Internet for them to "manage". The downside I hear, with that, is 
> that they can remotely adjust SoH (state of health) thresholds to 
> lengthen battery life in order to meet warranty promises. Not sure how 
> true that is, but I've heard it a lot.

They apparently do this with their vehicles as well.  Claimed
0%-100% figures are mapped onto a somewhat narower, but hidden
true-SoC range at first, which is silently broadened over time to
compensate for cell aging.  Understandable, but I'm also uneasy at
such information-hiding.

> In terms of "reserve" capacity, Li-Ion can go much deeper than Lead 
> Acid. Some inverters are setup to disconnect the battery anywhere 
> between 3% - 20% SoC, depending on the OEM. For LFP chemistries, the BMS 
> will usually turn the pack off at 2.50V, while for NMC, that will be 
> around 2.75V. But different battery OEM's may be more or less aggressive 
> with their BMS's, depending on who you choose to buy from.

LFP (LiFePO4), with its longer cycle life may be the best
currently- available chemistry for fixed storage, where its lower
gravimetric & volumetric energy density (vs NMC) doesn't matter so
much.  NMC has economies of scale going for it, though, along with
what's likely to be an ever-increasing supply of 

Re: home router battery backup

[Mark Tinka]

On 1/18/22 18:15, Joe Maimon wrote:



Now how about some programming available so you can decide what 
thresholds and conditions remote start your genny which powers the 
rectifier which substitutes|augments the solar array?


Any half decent battery inverters will be able to adequately support 
this, out the box.


Mark.

Re: home router battery backup

[Grant Taylor via NANOG]

On 1/17/22 3:39 PM, Jordan wrote:
One of these, the one originally used for DSL, would always go down 
for both voice and data when the SLC lost power-- no DC, no dialtone, 
no DSL, while the other two remained up.  Despite several claims of 
a resolution, this was never properly fixed


I never had that specific problem.  But I occasionally had problems with 
repairs on B1s, a.k.a. "Life saving service" lines.  I had a couple of 
times that I had to threaten going to the Public Utilities Commission in 
the state for the ILEC's failure to repair a line.


I'll give the first failed repair gratis.  I make a comment when 
scheduling the second repair that they really need to fix it as I'd hate 
to have to report the failure to the PUC.  The third repair was more 
along the lines of "you fix this (now / on my time frame) or I am 
reporting this with full details to the PUC".  Thankfully I only had to 
report things to the PUC one time.




--
Grant. . . .
unix || die



smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature

Re: home router battery backup

[Joe Maimon]

Mark Tinka wrote:



On 1/18/22 00:26, Jordan wrote:


Wow, that's a nice program.  Do you know what they keep the
"reserve percentage" set to, the proportion of stored energy that
will never be discharged for grid-support, but held back for
island-mode use in case of an outage?


I don't use the Tesla Powerwall, but Li-Ion is generally the same
regardless of who packages it. The difference will be what the OEM
decides to set the low-voltage cut-off to on the inverter and/or BMS.

I'm not sure how much the owner can configure a Tesla Powerwall, but
with other installations, you can decide when your battery kicks in to
run loads, or when it hands back to the grid or generator. This
assumes evening time, when solar irradiation is unavailable, of
course, as that is generally the preferred source of energy.



Now how about some programming available so you can decide what 
thresholds and conditions remote start your genny which powers the 
rectifier which substitutes|augments the solar array?


All those 6500 PS lying about would make awesome rectifiers.

Joe


I've heard that Tesla will monitor the weather in your area to
"pre-charge" the Powerwall to account for possible power disruptions.
While I find that rather invasive, it's a cool feature for folk who
"don't want to know". Then again, I also hear that Tesla will limit or
withhold support and/or warranty if you do not connect your Powerwall
to the Internet for them to "manage". The downside I hear, with that,
is that they can remotely adjust SoH (state of health) thresholds to
lengthen battery life in order to meet warranty promises. Not sure how
true that is, but I've heard it a lot.

In terms of "reserve" capacity, Li-Ion can go much deeper than Lead
Acid. Some inverters are setup to disconnect the battery anywhere
between 3% - 20% SoC, depending on the OEM. For LFP chemistries, the
BMS will usually turn the pack off at 2.50V, while for NMC, that will
be around 2.75V. But different battery OEM's may be more or less
aggressive with their BMS's, depending on who you choose to buy from.

Mark.

Re: home router battery backup

[Mark Tinka]

On 1/18/22 00:26, Jordan wrote:


Wow, that's a nice program.  Do you know what they keep the
"reserve percentage" set to, the proportion of stored energy that
will never be discharged for grid-support, but held back for
island-mode use in case of an outage?


I don't use the Tesla Powerwall, but Li-Ion is generally the same 
regardless of who packages it. The difference will be what the OEM 
decides to set the low-voltage cut-off to on the inverter and/or BMS.


I'm not sure how much the owner can configure a Tesla Powerwall, but 
with other installations, you can decide when your battery kicks in to 
run loads, or when it hands back to the grid or generator. This assumes 
evening time, when solar irradiation is unavailable, of course, as that 
is generally the preferred source of energy.


I've heard that Tesla will monitor the weather in your area to 
"pre-charge" the Powerwall to account for possible power disruptions. 
While I find that rather invasive, it's a cool feature for folk who 
"don't want to know". Then again, I also hear that Tesla will limit or 
withhold support and/or warranty if you do not connect your Powerwall to 
the Internet for them to "manage". The downside I hear, with that, is 
that they can remotely adjust SoH (state of health) thresholds to 
lengthen battery life in order to meet warranty promises. Not sure how 
true that is, but I've heard it a lot.


In terms of "reserve" capacity, Li-Ion can go much deeper than Lead 
Acid. Some inverters are setup to disconnect the battery anywhere 
between 3% - 20% SoC, depending on the OEM. For LFP chemistries, the BMS 
will usually turn the pack off at 2.50V, while for NMC, that will be 
around 2.75V. But different battery OEM's may be more or less aggressive 
with their BMS's, depending on who you choose to buy from.


Mark.

Re: home router battery backup

[Jordan]

On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 02:06:39PM -0800, Michael Thomas wrote:
>
> For my ISP, they maintain backup power for both DSL and POTS.  I
> suspect that for a lot of DSL that would hold true because it's
> relatively easy for them to power since they already have the
> battery backup requirements for POTS.  The setup they have here
> is a DSLAM and SIP->POTS termination in a pedestal with fiber
> backhaul.  They use the old copper that used to go back to the CO
> to power the pedestal.

Do you happen to know what voltage is placed across the copper pairs
for this purpose?  Maybe 130V like T1 span repeaters?  More?

I used to have three POTS lines at home from BellSouth, before the
AT acquisition, with DSL on one of them, all supposedly served
from the same Lucent SLC.  One of these, the one originally used
for DSL, would always go down for both voice and data when the SLC
lost power-- no DC, no dialtone, no DSL, while the other two
remained up.  Despite several claims of a resolution, this was
never properly fixed, so eventually I just had them move DSL over
to one of the unaffected lines.

I could never understand what failure mode would result in losing
just a single POTS line like this while the carrier equipment was
running from battery, while others remained in service. 
Speculating, perhaps only the A or B-side was backed up, and an
open diode or other defect caused a single ine card to draw only
from the "other" source?  But, at this time (circa 2000) the remote
DSLAM was definitely a separate piece of equipment, right, joined
to a shared subscriber pair with passive splitters?

> Mike

-- 
Jordan.

Re: home router battery backup

[Jordan]

On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 10:29:13PM +, John Lightfoot wrote:
>
> In Vermont I have a Tesla Powerwall that Green Mountain Power
> paid for if I agreed to let them manage it.  Since then I've
> never had an outage of any kind, I usually figure out that there
> is one by seeing my neighbors' lights go off.

Wow, that's a nice program.  Do you know what they keep the
"reserve percentage" set to, the proportion of stored energy that
will never be discharged for grid-support, but held back for
island-mode use in case of an outage?

> I've also had great luck with my ISP, which is Comcast.  Even
> before we had the Powerwall, when the power would go out the
> (older) Comcast router would work on its own battery backup and
> my laptop would flip over to battery power, so I didn't have any
> loss of connectivity even then.

In my part of northeast Florida, although Comcast has installed
outside-plant batteries when extending service to new developments,
as of 2015 they would wait until customers complained (or perhaps
until "enough" ordered their voice service) to upgrade older
neighborhoods.

Service in my area used to drop immediately at even a fractional-
second grid power glitch, despite having many hours of backup on my
end.  It took about two months of nagging them to get the Alpha
Power box supporting our fiber<->coax node and line amps replaced
with one containing batteries, and nearly as long for a friend
across town in the same position.

Although I don't have Comcast voice service, instead using my own
over-the-top VoIP, several neighbors already did by this time.  I'm
surprised they weren't concerned for liabiilty over failed 911 calls.

Hopefully this policy has improved in the years since, but their
lack of proactive replacement of failed outside-plant batteries
suggests otherwise.  Rather than changing these out on a schedule,
or when failure is signaled by the equipment, they still appear to
wait until someone complains, after which expired batteries *might*
get swapped in a month or so.

Voice-capable gateways and eMTA's provided to Comcast Business
customers do contain lithium batteries good for several hours of
service, longer than most PBXes are backed up for, but of course
these are of no use when the outside plant lacks backup.

For residential customers, they seem to be charging a considerable
premium for the battery option:

https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/getting-a-new-battery

"A backup battery for certain Comcast-provided modems can be
purchased from Comcast at any time and are currently priced at
$165, plus tax.  Your purchase includes 24 hours of standby time, a
one-year warranty and monitoring to determine when you need to
purchase a new battery."

-- 
Jordan.

Re: home router battery backup

[Jeff Shultz]

+180v and -180v for a total of 360v. At really low amperage. Still makes a
respectable bang if you short it on the MDF. It gets converted on-site,
either in the DSLAM or in a separate box. I think it's 12v to the ONT.

On Mon, Jan 17, 2022 at 3:30 PM Michael Thomas  wrote:

>
> On 1/17/22 2:39 PM, Jordan wrote:
> > On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 02:06:39PM -0800, Michael Thomas wrote:
> >> For my ISP, they maintain backup power for both DSL and POTS.  I
> >> suspect that for a lot of DSL that would hold true because it's
> >> relatively easy for them to power since they already have the
> >> battery backup requirements for POTS.  The setup they have here
> >> is a DSLAM and SIP->POTS termination in a pedestal with fiber
> >> backhaul.  They use the old copper that used to go back to the CO
> >> to power the pedestal.
> > Do you happen to know what voltage is placed across the copper pairs
> > for this purpose?  Maybe 130V like T1 span repeaters?  More?
> >
> > I used to have three POTS lines at home from BellSouth, before the
> > AT acquisition, with DSL on one of them, all supposedly served
> > from the same Lucent SLC.  One of these, the one originally used
> > for DSL, would always go down for both voice and data when the SLC
> > lost power-- no DC, no dialtone, no DSL, while the other two
> > remained up.  Despite several claims of a resolution, this was
> > never properly fixed, so eventually I just had them move DSL over
> > to one of the unaffected lines.
> >
> > I could never understand what failure mode would result in losing
> > just a single POTS line like this while the carrier equipment was
> > running from battery, while others remained in service.
> > Speculating, perhaps only the A or B-side was backed up, and an
> > open diode or other defect caused a single ine card to draw only
> > from the "other" source?  But, at this time (circa 2000) the remote
> > DSLAM was definitely a separate piece of equipment, right, joined
> > to a shared subscriber pair with passive splitters?
> >
>
> I have absolutely no idea, but if I had to guess it is the same voltage
> as the local loop but I suppose they could use ring voltage too.
>
> Mike, definitely not a EE
>
>

-- 
Jeff Shultz

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Re: home router battery backup

[Michael Thomas]

On 1/17/22 2:39 PM, Jordan wrote:

On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 02:06:39PM -0800, Michael Thomas wrote:

For my ISP, they maintain backup power for both DSL and POTS.  I
suspect that for a lot of DSL that would hold true because it's
relatively easy for them to power since they already have the
battery backup requirements for POTS.  The setup they have here
is a DSLAM and SIP->POTS termination in a pedestal with fiber
backhaul.  They use the old copper that used to go back to the CO
to power the pedestal.

Do you happen to know what voltage is placed across the copper pairs
for this purpose?  Maybe 130V like T1 span repeaters?  More?

I used to have three POTS lines at home from BellSouth, before the
AT acquisition, with DSL on one of them, all supposedly served
from the same Lucent SLC.  One of these, the one originally used
for DSL, would always go down for both voice and data when the SLC
lost power-- no DC, no dialtone, no DSL, while the other two
remained up.  Despite several claims of a resolution, this was
never properly fixed, so eventually I just had them move DSL over
to one of the unaffected lines.

I could never understand what failure mode would result in losing
just a single POTS line like this while the carrier equipment was
running from battery, while others remained in service.
Speculating, perhaps only the A or B-side was backed up, and an
open diode or other defect caused a single ine card to draw only
from the "other" source?  But, at this time (circa 2000) the remote
DSLAM was definitely a separate piece of equipment, right, joined
to a shared subscriber pair with passive splitters?



I have absolutely no idea, but if I had to guess it is the same voltage 
as the local loop but I suppose they could use ring voltage too.


Mike, definitely not a EE

Re: home router battery backup

[Grant Taylor via NANOG]

On 1/17/22 2:24 PM, Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG wrote:
My "small" (< ~5,000 customers) ISP won't uncheck that box for me no 
matter how much I beg, plead, or offer to bring them snacks for their 
office.


Chuckle.

They keep mumbling stuff about FCC requirements which I suspect is just 
handwaving.  Oh well...it's on a generator-protected outlet now.


I've been known to find a crack in such armor when I start asking for 
information on the regulation so that I can read up on it and learn ~> 
understand it.  If it's real, they can usually get it to me in a week or 
so.  If it's fake, I get crickets until I push and escalate for the 
information, at which point I find out "it's company policy".


Policy can be a double edge sword, especially when you find an example 
of them violating their own policy.  }:-)




--
Grant. . . .
unix || die



smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature

Re: home router battery backup

[Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG]

On Mon, Jan 17, 2022 at 11:43 AM Jeff Shultz  wrote:

> BTW, Calix ONTs default to "Disable on battery = on" for the GigE ports -
> it's checkbox in the config to turn that off so they stay up when the power
> is out. Which we do uncheck. Particularly since we've going increasingly
> VOIP and our employees can connect remotely. Sadly, I suspect that trying
> to get a major telco to go in and uncheck that box for you would be the
> equivalent to talking to a wall.
>

My "small" (< ~5,000 customers) ISP won't uncheck that box for me no matter
how much I beg, plead, or offer to bring them snacks for their office.
They keep mumbling stuff about FCC requirements which I suspect is just
handwaving.  Oh well...it's on a generator-protected outlet now.

-A

Re: home router battery backup

[Jeff Shultz]

As one of those Telco/ISP's, it's growing more and more likely that
DSL/POTS are now on the same card and they are all tied into the 48V
battery and generator protected plant. And Alpha Electronics is probably
selling a lot of those Power over Copper systems for powering remote Calix
E3-12C and E3-48 DSLAMs (as well as their competitor's equivalents), as
well as powering the ONT in any building with more than one dwelling unit
connected to it.

BTW, Calix ONTs default to "Disable on battery = on" for the GigE ports -
it's checkbox in the config to turn that off so they stay up when the power
is out. Which we do uncheck. Particularly since we've going increasingly
VOIP and our employees can connect remotely. Sadly, I suspect that trying
to get a major telco to go in and uncheck that box for you would be the
equivalent to talking to a wall.

As to the original poster's request, after wildfires, ice storms, and wind
storms of the past year and a half, and lumberjacks clearing trees damaged
by those events and dropping them on the power lines since then, more and
more of our customers are investing in backup power solutions, even if it
is just a UPS to level out the brownouts. But it still is probably not a
significant percentage of the total.

On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 2:08 PM Michael Thomas  wrote:

>
> On 1/12/22 3:11 PM, Scott T Anderson via NANOG wrote:
>
> Hi everyone,
>
>
>
> Thanks very much for all the responses throughout the day. They are very
> helpful. Your (collective) answers triggered a couple follow-on questions:
>
>
>
> For those individuals with backup battery power for their modem/router, do
> they maintain Internet access throughout a power outage (as long as their
> backup power solution works)? I.e., does the rest of the ISP network
> maintain service throughout a power outage?
>
> For my ISP, they maintain backup power for both DSL and POTS. I suspect
> that for a lot of DSL that would hold true because it's relatively easy for
> them to power since they already have the battery backup requirements for
> POTS. The setup they have here is a DSLAM and SIP->POTS termination in a
> pedestal with fiber backhaul. They use the old copper that used to go back
> to the CO to power the pedestal.
>
> Mike
>
>

-- 
Jeff Shultz

-- 
Like us on Social Media for News, Promotions, and other information!!

   
      
      
      














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named. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, 
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Re: home router battery backup

[Mark Tinka]

On 1/14/22 18:47, Michael Thomas wrote:

Y'all are power hogs. We're at about 350 watts most of the time, and 
even that bugs me.




When the kids leave the house in a few years, that footprint should come 
down for us. It's amazing how much power a PS4 in full swing draws...


Then again, we are essentially off-grid, so I take comfort in that.

Mark.

Re: home router battery backup

[Michael Thomas]

On 1/13/22 8:22 PM, Mark Tinka wrote:



On 1/13/22 17:56, Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG wrote:



I bought one of those power monitors and tossed it on the circuit 
that goes into my house.  At *night* when everything is off, I might 
get down as far as ~800 watts.

During the day it's more like 2,000-3,500.


Almost the same here... down to about 700W between 11PM - 4:30AM, and 
mostly 1,500W - 2,000W during the day, unless the Mrs. wants to grill 
some chicken or do some baking in the oven that day.


Y'all are power hogs. We're at about 350 watts most of the time, and 
even that bugs me.


Mike

Re: home router battery backup

[Mark Tinka]

On 1/13/22 17:56, Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG wrote:



I bought one of those power monitors and tossed it on the circuit that 
goes into my house.  At *night* when everything is off, I might get 
down as far as ~800 watts.

During the day it's more like 2,000-3,500.


Almost the same here... down to about 700W between 11PM - 4:30AM, and 
mostly 1,500W - 2,000W during the day, unless the Mrs. wants to grill 
some chicken or do some baking in the oven that day.


Fair point, it's a family of 4 + 1, so...

If I get the hat-trick (water heater, central air, and well pump) 
running at the same time, I can get up to ~24,000 watts.


Ouch!

For our traditional water heater, we're using a system that can power 
the tank elements either via its own independent PV array or via the 
grid (where the grid is either the main house's PV array or the utility):


https://www.geyserworx.co.za/

I, then, added tankless, on-demand gas heaters into the mix, and piped 
that into the house:


https://gasgeysers.co.za/qr/20lt-room-sealed-fan-forced-gas-geyser/

I use a solenoid valve attached to a little IoT thingie to switch 
between the tankless gas heater and the traditional tank, depending on 
time-of-day. Tankless heater on at 8PM - 10:30AM, and traditional tank 
on at 10:31AM - 7:59PM (unless we had poor solar yield that day and it 
didn't heat up enough).


In all, we haven't had to use the utility to heat water since we went 
this route. Saved tons of cash, and guarantees a hot shower any day, any 
weather.





I definitely notice it when the power goes out.  The sound of UPS 
relays and alarms is enough to wake the dead.


For my setup, even if we generally can transfer from utility grid to 
battery backup between 0ms - 20ms, I attached UPS's to all sensitive 
appliances in the house as an additional backup anyway (small ones, 1kVA 
- 2kVA, type-thing). The reason for that is if we have an outage while 
the battery inverter is forming its grid from the utility, there are 
instances where the power outage is not a clean one (like a brownout, or 
slow low voltage event), and this would trip the battery as the inverter 
tries to quickly re-form the grid from the battery (230V/50Hz).


In such cases, the battery would protect itself from a possible short 
circuit, and shutdown for about 50ms, but that's long enough to power 
down the inverter, and it would take 60 seconds for it to restart. 
During that time, the UPS's will keep appliances running (Internet, TV, 
computers, consoles, a/v, e.t.c.).


Of course, if a utility outage occurred when the inverter was forming 
its grid from the battery, then we won't notice anything.


I've added voltage sensors to the grid supply to cut the power before 
the voltage gets too low, too quickly (cut at 219V), but that only 
improved the situation slightly. There are other inverters that have 
their own internal voltage sensors that could handle this far better, 
but I preferred the model I went with for its data management capabilities.


Mark.

Re: home router battery backup

[Mark Tinka]

On 1/13/22 17:38, Jay wrote:

Greetings,
   I am a home user.  Much of my home has been rewired to run off of 
12-volts D.C. from a large 1200 Amp/Hour LiFePO4 battery bank that is 
recharged using Solar.  All my lighting, ceiling fans, water pump, Ham 
radio gear, weather alert radio, USB charging stations, alarm system, 
security cameras and DVR, my wife's CPAP machine, 40-inch flat screen 
TV, ROKU streaming device, etc. all now run off 12 VDC.  High 
consumption devices like stove, refrigerators, air conditioners, 
furnace, still run on AC but get *much* of their power from a 5kw 
Grid-Tied Solar array (Enphase IQ7 microinverters) which I hope to 
soon add a battery backup to. There is also a whole-house 4kw backup 
generator.  This is what is known as a "Hybrid" home :)


   ALL of my servers, workstations, routers/hubs, WiFi, are also 
converted to run on 12VDC from this battery/solar plant.  In many 
cases it is just a matter of adding a DC-DC buck/booster regulator 
that can be purchased on Amazon for ten bucks, or so.  These generally 
take 8-40 volts input and will deliver whatever voltage output that 
you desire.  Both my DSL and FTTH are powered this way.


   It was mentioned that we need to address *reducing* our power 
consumption in order to reduce our carbon footprint.  This ongoing 
project has helped me to do just that and eliminate so many "power 
suckers" and wall-warts from my home.


   We consume around 150 watts on DC and generally around 600 watts on 
AC (unless a freezer or air conditioner cycles on).  When the power 
goes out, sometimes we don't immediately notice it!  I think I am 
living inside a giant UPS, and more independance from the Grid is 
refreshing.


This is amazing!

I couldn't possibly find the energy to convert any (never mind all) of 
my standard appliances to DC, but what you've done is very impressive, 
especially since you are talking about a house and not a boat!


Well done!

Mark.

Re: home router battery backup

[John Lightfoot]

In Vermont I have a Tesla Powerwall that Green Mountain Power paid for if I 
agreed to let them manage it.  Since then I’ve never had an outage of any kind, 
I usually figure out that there is one by seeing my neighbors’ lights go off.

I’ve also had great luck with my ISP, which is Comcast.  Even before we had the 
Powerwall, when the power would go out the (older) Comcast router would work on 
its own battery backup and my laptop would flip over to battery power, so I 
didn’t have any loss of connectivity even then.

--John

From: NANOG  on behalf of Scott T 
Anderson via NANOG 
Date: Thursday, January 13, 2022 at 8:28 AM
To: Scott T Anderson via NANOG 
Subject: RE: home router battery backup
Hi everyone,

Thanks very much for all the responses throughout the day. They are very 
helpful. Your (collective) answers triggered a couple follow-on questions:

For those individuals with backup battery power for their modem/router, do they 
maintain Internet access throughout a power outage (as long as their backup 
power solution works)? I.e., does the rest of the ISP network maintain service 
throughout a power outage?

Are the modems with backup power designed to operate for a specified period of 
time without power and if so, for how long and how was that duration identified?
If those with backup power do maintain Internet access during a power outage, 
do they lose that access if the power outage extends beyond a certain time? 
I.e., does the ISP network equipment go offline at some point in time due to 
batteries being drained and not having power generation capabilities?

Again, thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience!
Scott

From: NANOG  On Behalf Of 
richey.goldb...@gmail.com
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2022 12:38 PM
To: Scott T Anderson via NANOG 
Subject: Re: home router battery backup

At my last employer we installed lots of Adtrans at Car Dealerships, Hotels, 
and other SMBs.It was common for them to have a small UPS but 9 times out 
of 10 the UPS 2-3 times older than the life cycle of the battery and no one 
ever knew that you could change the battery in them.So they usually just 
had a heavy power strip that was prone to failing after a power loss.

We did have the option to install a battery back up on the Adtran but it would 
have been useless because most of them didn’t have any kind of backup power for 
their PBXs.


I’m pretty sure that my own power protection on my network gear and theater 
gear far exceeded the average end user’s remote offices.

-richey

From: NANOG 
mailto:nanog-bounces+richey.goldberg=gmail@nanog.org>>
 on behalf of Andy Ringsmuth mailto:a...@andyring.com>>
Date: Wednesday, January 12, 2022 at 1:16 PM
To: Scott T Anderson mailto:standers...@wisc.edu>>, Scott 
T Anderson via NANOG mailto:nanog@nanog.org>>
Subject: Re: home router battery backup

> On Jan 12, 2022, at 11:35 AM, Scott T Anderson via NANOG 
> mailto:nanog@nanog.org>> wrote:
>
> Hi NANOG mailing list,
>
> I am a graduate student, currently conducting research on how power outages 
> affect home Internet users. I know that the FCC has a regulation since 2015 
> (47 CFR Section 9.20) requiring ISPs to provide an option to voice customers 
> to purchase a battery backup for emergency voice services during power 
> outages. As this is only an option and only applies to customers who 
> subscribe to voice services, I was wondering if anyone had any insights on 
> the prevalence of battery backup for home modem/routers? I.e., what 
> percentage of home users actually install a battery backup in their home 
> modem/router or use an external UPS?
>
> Thanks.
> Scott

Given that most people barely even know what their home router is, I suspect 
the percentage would be somewhere south of 1 percent. Outside of my home, I 
honestly cannot recall EVER seeing someone’s home using a battery backup for 
their internet infrastructure.

I personally do, but of course I (and probably everyone on this list) am by no 
means representative of the population at large in this particular area.


Andy Ringsmuth
5609 Harding Drive
Lincoln, NE 68521-5831
(402) 304-0083
a...@andyring.com<mailto:a...@andyring.com>

Re: home router battery backup

[Michael Thomas]

On 1/12/22 3:11 PM, Scott T Anderson via NANOG wrote:


Hi everyone,

Thanks very much for all the responses throughout the day. They are 
very helpful. Your (collective) answers triggered a couple follow-on 
questions:


For those individuals with backup battery power for their 
modem/router, do they maintain Internet access throughout a power 
outage (as long as their backup power solution works)? I.e., does the 
rest of the ISP network maintain service throughout a power outage?


For my ISP, they maintain backup power for both DSL and POTS. I suspect 
that for a lot of DSL that would hold true because it's relatively easy 
for them to power since they already have the battery backup 
requirements for POTS. The setup they have here is a DSLAM and SIP->POTS 
termination in a pedestal with fiber backhaul. They use the old copper 
that used to go back to the CO to power the pedestal.


Mike

Re: home router battery backup

[Michael Thomas]

On 1/12/22 9:21 PM, Mark Tinka wrote:



On 1/12/22 21:41, Michael Thomas wrote:

We just installed a battery too, but it will probably only last ~1 
day and much less than that in winter. We're in the process of 
looking at a generator that interfaces directly with the inverter so 
that it handles the grid, the battery, the solar and the generator 
along with the transfer switch.


Or maybe the other way around - perhaps you should be looking for an 
inverter that handles all power sources... battery, utility and 
generator, so you don't have to worry about managing the transfer.


That's what I have. Or at least that's what SolarEdge is promising for 
the generator part of the equation with a software upgrade.


Mike

Re: home router battery backup

[Dave Taht]

On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 11:00 AM Chris Adams  wrote:
>
> Once upon a time, Dave Taht  said:
> > I tend also to hang a good gps off a second usb port, if available.
> > There's a topic for geeks - does anyone else really know (or care)
> > what time it really is?
>
> 25 (or 6) to 4?
>
> Running GPS over USB for timing makes me twitch though - too much
> jitter! :)  Use a proper serial or GPIO port, with that you can get down
> to sub-microsecond accuracy.

No, no, I actually went through the time/hassle and expense to create
a usb gps with a PPS
output, and then wanted to put a supercap on it because batteries
didn't last long enough.

https://lists.bufferbloat.net/pipermail/thumbgps-devel/2012-May/000497.html

They were sold wholesale for a while. I don't know if any modern usb
gps has a pps
output... I still have enough of these left to last a lifetime.


> --
> Chris Adams 



-- 
I tried to build a better future, a few times:
https://wayforward.archive.org/?site=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.icei.org

Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC

Re: home router battery backup

[Tony Wicks]

Yep, a pair of long nose pliers and that beeper pops right off the board, real easy.

Re: home router battery backup

[Chris Adams]

Once upon a time, Dave Taht  said:
> I tend also to hang a good gps off a second usb port, if available.
> There's a topic for geeks - does anyone else really know (or care)
> what time it really is?

25 (or 6) to 4?

Running GPS over USB for timing makes me twitch though - too much
jitter! :)  Use a proper serial or GPIO port, with that you can get down
to sub-microsecond accuracy.
-- 
Chris Adams 

Re: home router battery backup

[Chris Adams]

Once upon a time, Dave Taht  said:
> Also, I *hate* the beeps. It's dark out, I know the powers off, darn
> it, no need to beep. That's why I buy 'smart' upses because you can
> tell them not beep.

You can tell ANY UPS to not beep... sometimes it just requires more
force (and wire cutters).
-- 
Chris Adams 

Re: home router battery backup

[Stephen Stuart]

> I tend also to hang a good gps off a second usb port, if available.
> There's a topic for geeks - does anyone else really know (or care)
> what time it really is?

if so i can't imagine why (no, no)
we've all got time enough to cry

(oddly apropos for the topic of power outages)

RE: home router battery backup

[Ryland Kremeier]

My current solution is having the UPS plugged into my bare metal fileserver. 
But I’m wanting to get rid of it at some point so any other solution will be 
superior to none. I appreciate the added info!

That being said my current router solution is a Ubiquity ER4. I don’t currently 
run openWRT on anything because my older server hardware wasn’t able to keep up 
with full 1gb up and down speeds with openwrt or any other flavor of self 
hosted routing. Not sure I could still apply your solution to an ER4.

Thank you,
-- Ryland

From: Dave Taht<mailto:dave.t...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2022 12:07 PM
To: Ryland Kremeier<mailto:rkreme...@barryelectric.com>
Cc: Stephen Stuart<mailto:stu...@tech.org>; Jared 
Mauch<mailto:ja...@puck.nether.net>; nanog@nanog.org<mailto:nanog@nanog.org>
Subject: Re: home router battery backup

On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 10:02 AM Ryland Kremeier
 wrote:
>
> Thanks for this! Definitely going to look into doing this!

I typically run the ups monitor off a suitable openwrt box (most have
at least one usb port) no need for a separate pi.

I tend also to hang a good gps off a second usb port, if available.
There's a topic for geeks - does anyone else really know (or care)
what time it really is?

>
>
> Thank you,
>
> -- Ryland
>
>
>
> From: Stephen Stuart
> Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2022 11:58 AM
> To: Jared Mauch
> Cc: nanog@nanog.org
> Subject: Re: home router battery backup
>
>
>
> [...]
>
> note that if your ups has a usb port, you can attach a raspberry pi
> and run upsmon to be told (among other things) when the battery
> requires replacement rather than rely on hearing the beeps. good for
> the out-of-the-way closets with network gear.
>
>



--
I tried to build a better future, a few times:
https://wayforward.archive.org/?site=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.icei.org

Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC

Re: home router battery backup

[Dave Taht]

On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 10:02 AM Ryland Kremeier
 wrote:
>
> Thanks for this! Definitely going to look into doing this!

I typically run the ups monitor off a suitable openwrt box (most have
at least one usb port) no need for a separate pi.

I tend also to hang a good gps off a second usb port, if available.
There's a topic for geeks - does anyone else really know (or care)
what time it really is?

>
>
> Thank you,
>
> -- Ryland
>
>
>
> From: Stephen Stuart
> Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2022 11:58 AM
> To: Jared Mauch
> Cc: nanog@nanog.org
> Subject: Re: home router battery backup
>
>
>
> [...]
>
> note that if your ups has a usb port, you can attach a raspberry pi
> and run upsmon to be told (among other things) when the battery
> requires replacement rather than rely on hearing the beeps. good for
> the out-of-the-way closets with network gear.
>
>



-- 
I tried to build a better future, a few times:
https://wayforward.archive.org/?site=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.icei.org

Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC

Re: home router battery backup

[Dave Taht]

On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 9:56 AM Stephen Stuart  wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> note that if your ups has a usb port, you can attach a raspberry pi
> and run upsmon to be told (among other things) when the battery
> requires replacement rather than rely on hearing the beeps. good for
> the out-of-the-way closets with network gear.

Also, I *hate* the beeps. It's dark out, I know the powers off, darn
it, no need to beep. That's why I buy 'smart' upses because you can
tell them not beep.

-- 
I tried to build a better future, a few times:
https://wayforward.archive.org/?site=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.icei.org

Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC

RE: home router battery backup

[Ryland Kremeier]

Thanks for this! Definitely going to look into doing this!

Thank you,
-- Ryland

From: Stephen Stuart<mailto:stu...@tech.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2022 11:58 AM
To: Jared Mauch<mailto:ja...@puck.nether.net>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org<mailto:nanog@nanog.org>
Subject: Re: home router battery backup

[...]

note that if your ups has a usb port, you can attach a raspberry pi
and run upsmon to be told (among other things) when the battery
requires replacement rather than rely on hearing the beeps. good for
the out-of-the-way closets with network gear.

Re: home router battery backup

[Stephen Stuart]

[...]

note that if your ups has a usb port, you can attach a raspberry pi
and run upsmon to be told (among other things) when the battery
requires replacement rather than rely on hearing the beeps. good for
the out-of-the-way closets with network gear.

Re: home router battery backup

[Jared Mauch]

> On Jan 13, 2022, at 12:28 PM, Chris Adams  wrote:
> 
> Once upon a time, Brandon Martin  said:
>> AT and Comcast don't seem to provide battery by default if you buy
>> voice service from them.
> 
> The only major power outage I've experienced at my house (I've been here
> over 20 years) was the May 2011 tornado outbreak, when TVA lost hundreds
> of distribution towers, and my local utility lost all feeds.  At the
> time, I had AT POTS, Comcast cable/Internet, and T-Mobile cell.

You are lucky.  In my areas we have many power outages and in my ~20 years in 
my current house, we have had several outages that went past 3 days in various 
weather (spring, summer, fall, winter)

Not only were we impacted by the NE blackout, but just in the short time I’ve 
had a generator it’s run around 0.5% of the time due to grid outage, with the 
prior year we had 7 different outages.

I also don’t believe the reporting is accurate from this source I’m doing a 
quick SWAG of, I think it’s been longer.  It’s so bad I monitor the grid 
voltage and have it in influxdb+grafana dashboard

(I recommend iotawatt if you want a neat device)

- Jared

Re: home router battery backup

[Steven Champeon]

on Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 05:35:19PM +, Scott T Anderson via NANOG wrote:
> Hi NANOG mailing list,
> 
> I am a graduate student, currently conducting research on how power
> outages affect home Internet users.

Not a netadmin, but longtime sysadmin, and have been working from home
for over a decade. We have Spectrum cable (still waiting on Google to
run fiber to this block) and a smallish home network, three Apple
Airport Extremes to help get around the c. 1870 era plaster walls in our
house, and a UPS for the modem, switch, NAS, and voice (currently
Phonebooth), as well as another for my work laptop and monitors, the
Mini we use for remote backups of our colocated servers, and a line
conditioner for the TV, TiVo and its external disk as well as the Cisco
TA. 

We've been here twenty years and have only had one multi-day power
outage, due to an ice storm, and despite the five fireplaces we hadn't
had any of them lined so it got very cold (we've since lined one and
installed a wood burning insert). Despite it all, we've never bothered
with a generator; it may be in the cards when we do a planned renovation
though, we're just north of downtown Raleigh in a historic neighborhood
so the grid is pretty stable for the most part save cars hitting poles
or transformers blowing due to wind or ice damage. Not as good as our
old apartment over by NCSU, we lived there seven years and I don't
remember ever losing power. We powered the computers down and unplugged
them once during a severe thunderstorm, just to be safe, but that was a
precaution more than a necessity.

A few years ago we learned that the lights in your house can dim
temporarily but that they should never get *brighter*, thanks to a
recently installed but faulty smart meter. They estimated that one input
was serving ~180. We lost a big box full's worth of various powerstrips
and one Netgear 8-port GE switch, but fortunately didn't lose any of the
laptops or the Dell server we had at the time. The firemen who came to
investigate laughed at us and told us in a house this old you had to
expect electrical issues; when we called Duke Energy the guy replaced
the meter and used his hands to mime typing and said "google 'neutral
burned through'" and ask for reimbursement for damaged items, so it
didn't cost us anything but it was still pretty scary.

So, yet another atypical user, but yes, UPSes and line conditioners are
standard in this house.

-- 
hesketh.com/inc. v: +1(919)834-2552 f: +1(919)834-2553 w: http://hesketh.com/
Internet security and antispam hostname intelligence: http://enemieslist.com/

Re: home router battery backup

[Chris Adams]

Once upon a time, Brandon Martin  said:
> AT and Comcast don't seem to provide battery by default if you buy
> voice service from them.

The only major power outage I've experienced at my house (I've been here
over 20 years) was the May 2011 tornado outbreak, when TVA lost hundreds
of distribution towers, and my local utility lost all feeds.  At the
time, I had AT POTS, Comcast cable/Internet, and T-Mobile cell.

I have all my stuff on UPS, so I could see for a little while that
Comcast dropped almost immediately; it looked like they had no (or dead)
batteries in their distribution system.  T-Mobile stayed up but got
congested (because lots of people switched to cells for Internet), and
AT POTS was up the whole time (they have batteries in all the remotes,
with natural gas generators in a lot of them, and rolled generator
trucks around to charge things up).

I left town the next morning to somewhere with electricity, and came
back several days later, before my power had been restored (it came back
that night).  IIRC Comcast was dead, AT was up, and T-Mobile was up
but slow.

I've got Google Fiber now, on local utility fiber, and I haven't
experienced any outage when there's a power outage, but we also haven't
had any extended outage.  Since the fiber network is run by the utility,
the huts are at substations, so it would take a substation outage to
knock out power to the hut (and I think they may still also have
generators at the huts).

-- 
Chris Adams 

home router battery backup

[james.cut...@consultant.com]

> On Jan 12, 2022, at 5:11 PM, Scott T Anderson via NANOG  > wrote:
> 
> For those individuals with backup battery power for their modem/router, do 
> they maintain Internet access throughout a power outage (as long as their 
> backup power solution works)? I.e., does the rest of the ISP network maintain 
> service throughout a power outage?

The answer is, “It depends.” 

Plymouth in Michigan recently had a substation fire that took out a large 
fraction of the city. Restoration of the substation was a lengthy process as 
mobile transformers and the like were required. My Comcast connection was only 
down for a short time until some generators were dispatched to some 
pole-mounted equipment within the city. 

Since my local power comes from a different substation, the brief Comcast 
outage was the only noticeable event. I frequently hear the UPS beep for short 
interruptions, confirming that the battery is still strong.

My original UPS was installed to ride through momentary outages and to inhibit 
spikes since spikes and arbitrary power shutdowns can cause damage to both data 
and equipment. My cable modem, router, network hub, several computers and 
monitors, and task lighting are all protected from outages for a decent 
interval followed by a spike-free shutdown. The latter is important, especially 
as compared to the transients occurring as trees fall on power lines. 

The 2003 midwest blackout was days long. I helped a friend wire his well pump 
to a portable generator so one could “flush”. I then grabbed my laptop and took 
refuge up north outside the outage area. At that time, WFH had long been part 
of my vocabulary.

Re: home router battery backup

[Dave Taht]

Has this xkcd gone by yet?

https://xkcd.com/705/

I would actually like a study of how network "glitches" and outages
affect more normal humanity. I did - and it took years to relax this
much - finally get
to the point to when the power went out, I'd take a walk, find a book,
or do something other than stress about the thing I was doing that was
interrupted
when the lights went out. I tend to think that with internet addiction
on the rise for the general public that they are becoming more like us
in this respect,
and that's not a good thing.

On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 10:03 AM Scott T Anderson via NANOG
 wrote:
>
> Hi NANOG mailing list,
>
>
>
> I am a graduate student, currently conducting research on how power outages 
> affect home Internet users. I know that the FCC has a regulation since 2015 
> (47 CFR Section 9.20) requiring ISPs to provide an option to voice customers 
> to purchase a battery backup for emergency voice services during power 
> outages. As this is only an option and only applies to customers who 
> subscribe to voice services, I was wondering if anyone had any insights on 
> the prevalence of battery backup for home modem/routers? I.e., what 
> percentage of home users actually install a battery backup in their home 
> modem/router or use an external UPS?
>
>
>
> Thanks.
>
> Scott
>
>
>
> Reference for 47 CFR Section 9.20: 
> https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-A/part-9/subpart-H/section-9.20
>
>



-- 
I tried to build a better future, a few times:
https://wayforward.archive.org/?site=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.icei.org

Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC

Re: home router battery backup

[Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG]

On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 7:41 AM Jay  wrote:

> We consume around 150 watts on DC and generally around 600 watts on AC
> (unless a freezer or air conditioner cycles on).  When the power goes out,
> sometimes we don't immediately notice it!  I think I am living inside a
> giant UPS, and more independance from the Grid is refreshing.
>

*boggles*

I bought one of those power monitors and tossed it on the circuit that goes
into my house.  At *night* when everything is off, I might get down as far
as ~800 watts.
During the day it's more like 2,000-3,500.  If I get the hat-trick (water
heater, central air, and well pump) running at the same time, I can get up
to ~24,000 watts.

The down-side...it's only monitoring the branch that leads to the house.
My office is on a separate branch.

My neighbor pays around $150 every two months on their power bill.
I pay just under ~$260 *every month*.
*sigh*

I definitely notice it when the power goes out.  The sound of UPS relays
and alarms is enough to wake the dead.

-A

Re: home router battery backup

[Mark Tinka]

On 1/13/22 17:44, Andy Ringsmuth wrote:


The utility had never experienced that before either. The entire city only had 
a couple hours notice that this would be happening.

Oh well. We got through it.


Chances are they have since upgraded their experience and procedures for 
this occurrence :-).


Mark.

Re: home router battery backup

[Andy Ringsmuth]

> On Jan 13, 2022, at 9:22 AM, Mark Tinka  wrote:
> 
>> The power company said the rotating outages would be 30-45 minutes, which I 
>> do have UPS capacity to handle. But the rotating outage went close to 2 
>> hours, exhausting my UPS capacity and getting to the point where I was more 
>> concerned about the temperature in the building.
> 
> Having had extensive experience with load shedding growing up this side of 
> the world (sadly), the outage period announced by the power company may or 
> may not include the time required to re-energize the affected areas.
> 
> So when they say 30 - 45 minutes, you should ask them if that includes or 
> excludes the time allowance for re-energizing.

The utility had never experienced that before either. The entire city only had 
a couple hours notice that this would be happening.

Oh well. We got through it.



-Andy

RE: home router battery backup

[Jay]

Greetings,
   I am a home user.  Much of my home has been rewired to run off of 
12-volts D.C. from a large 1200 Amp/Hour LiFePO4 battery bank that is 
recharged using Solar.  All my lighting, ceiling fans, water pump, Ham 
radio gear, weather alert radio, USB charging stations, alarm system, 
security cameras and DVR, my wife's CPAP machine, 40-inch flat screen TV, 
ROKU streaming device, etc. all now run off 12 VDC.  High consumption 
devices like stove, refrigerators, air conditioners, furnace, still run on 
AC but get *much* of their power from a 5kw Grid-Tied Solar array (Enphase 
IQ7 microinverters) which I hope to soon add a battery backup to.  There 
is also a whole-house 4kw backup generator.  This is what is known as a 
"Hybrid" home :)


   ALL of my servers, workstations, routers/hubs, WiFi, are also converted 
to run on 12VDC from this battery/solar plant.  In many cases it is just a 
matter of adding a DC-DC buck/booster regulator that can be purchased on 
Amazon for ten bucks, or so.  These generally take 8-40 volts input and 
will deliver whatever voltage output that you desire.  Both my DSL and 
FTTH are powered this way.


   It was mentioned that we need to address *reducing* our power 
consumption in order to reduce our carbon footprint.  This ongoing project 
has helped me to do just that and eliminate so many "power suckers" and 
wall-warts from my home.


   We consume around 150 watts on DC and generally around 600 watts on AC 
(unless a freezer or air conditioner cycles on).  When the power goes out, 
sometimes we don't immediately notice it!  I think I am living inside a 
giant UPS, and more independance from the Grid is refreshing.


   Enjoy!
  --- Jay Nugent  WB8TKL
  Ypsilanti, Michigan
  j...@nuge.com




From: Scott T Anderson via NANOG
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2022 7:28 AM
To: Scott T Anderson via NANOG
Subject: RE: home router battery backup

Hi everyone,

Thanks very much for all the responses throughout the day. They are very 
helpful. Your
(collective) answers triggered a couple follow-on questions:

For those individuals with backup battery power for their modem/router, do they 
maintain
Internet access throughout a power outage (as long as their backup power 
solution works)?
I.e., does the rest of the ISP network maintain service throughout a power 
outage?

Are the modems with backup power designed to operate for a specified period of 
time without
power and if so, for how long and how was that duration identified?

If those with backup power do maintain Internet access during a power outage, 
do they lose
that access if the power outage extends beyond a certain time? I.e., does the 
ISP network
equipment go offline at some point in time due to batteries being drained and 
not having
power generation capabilities?

Again, thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience!

Scott

Re: home router battery backup

[Mark Tinka]

On 1/13/22 17:15, Andy Ringsmuth wrote:

The power company said the rotating outages would be 30-45 minutes, 
which I do have UPS capacity to handle. But the rotating outage went 
close to 2 hours, exhausting my UPS capacity and getting to the point 
where I was more concerned about the temperature in the building.


Having had extensive experience with load shedding growing up this side 
of the world (sadly), the outage period announced by the power company 
may or may not include the time required to re-energize the affected areas.


So when they say 30 - 45 minutes, you should ask them if that includes 
or excludes the time allowance for re-energizing.


In South Africa, load shedding can be announced as 2hrs or 4hrs. 
However, the schedule will be printed as 2.5hrs or 4.5hrs, with those 
extra 30 minutes added to allow for engineers to re-energize neighborhoods.


Also, transformers and distribution switching gear is not designed to be 
operated in an on/off fashion. So things can go wrong when neighborhoods 
are re-energized, e.g., trips from downstream customer surge overloads, 
downstream transformers that trip and cascade, e.t.c.


Mark.

Re: home router battery backup

[Andy Ringsmuth]

> On Jan 12, 2022, at 5:11 PM, Scott T Anderson via NANOG  
> wrote:
> 
> For those individuals with backup battery power for their modem/router, do 
> they maintain Internet access throughout a power outage (as long as their 
> backup power solution works)? I.e., does the rest of the ISP network maintain 
> service throughout a power outage?

I honestly don’t know.

My entire subdivision is fairly new (early 2000s) and all utilities are 
underground. Therefore, power outages are extremely rare. We’ve lived in this 
house for 9 years and I think there’s been maybe one short outage due to a 
blown transformer somewhere, several years ago.

Last winter though during the EXTREME cold snap where we hit -31 in Lincoln, 
Nebraska, the power company did have to resort to deliberately shutting off 
entire neighborhoods for short periods, 30-45 minutes, to maintain the overall 
grid. My home was not in one of the affected areas, but we were close.

My office was though, and that was a shitstorm. We are a small company, less 
than 20 people, most of whom work from home. The power company said the 
rotating outages would be 30-45 minutes, which I do have UPS capacity to 
handle. But the rotating outage went close to 2 hours, exhausting my UPS 
capacity and getting to the point where I was more concerned about the 
temperature in the building. However, during that time I do know my ISP had no 
trouble. Allo Communications, a FTTH outfit.



Andy Ringsmuth
5609 Harding Drive
Lincoln, NE 68521-5831
(402) 304-0083
a...@andyring.com

Re: home router battery backup

[Mark Tinka]

On 1/13/22 01:11, Scott T Anderson via NANOG wrote:

For those individuals with backup battery power for their 
modem/router, do they maintain Internet access throughout a power 
outage (as long as their backup power solution works)? I.e., does the 
rest of the ISP network maintain service throughout a power outage?




In 2016, there was a massive storm in my neighborhood that flooded my 
fibre provider's GPON PoP. That was an outage.


In 2018, there was a neighborhood-wide power outage that caught the 
provider off-guard re: their own backup.


In recent years, the provider has been able to maintain uptime through 
extended and/or multiple daily power outages.


But in the end, your provider will be the weakest link, if you are able 
to keep your devices powered throughout a lengthy or multi-day outage.


The mobile operators don't seem to be able to last more than 8hrs in my 
neck of the woods, and worse if the the day has multiple outages, as the 
battery never gets a chance to fully recharge.



Are the modems with backup power designed to operate for a specified 
period of time without power and if so, for how long and how was that 
duration identified?




All comes down to how large the battery is, and how much the site's 
demand is.



If those with backup power do maintain Internet access during a power 
outage, do they lose that access if the power outage extends beyond a 
certain time? I.e., does the ISP network equipment go offline at some 
point in time due to batteries being drained and not having power 
generation capabilities?




Again, down to battery and demand sizing.

The other issue here is if there are multiple outages in the same 24hr 
period, the ability for the operator to sustain uptime decreases, 
because the battery never gets a full charge again.


Mark.

RE: home router battery backup

[Ryland Kremeier]

As a home user I have everything behind battery backup, my desktop, switches 
between buildings, and home server rack. Any outage that lasts less than 30 
minutes will not kick me offline. I mainly have my equipment behind UPS to 
protect from surges/storms and to account for power blinks or breaker trips 
which happen much more often when you’re working with 70 year old farm 
buildings.

Thank you,
-- Ryland

From: Scott T Anderson via NANOG<mailto:nanog@nanog.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2022 7:28 AM
To: Scott T Anderson via NANOG<mailto:nanog@nanog.org>
Subject: RE: home router battery backup

Hi everyone,

Thanks very much for all the responses throughout the day. They are very 
helpful. Your (collective) answers triggered a couple follow-on questions:

For those individuals with backup battery power for their modem/router, do they 
maintain Internet access throughout a power outage (as long as their backup 
power solution works)? I.e., does the rest of the ISP network maintain service 
throughout a power outage?

Are the modems with backup power designed to operate for a specified period of 
time without power and if so, for how long and how was that duration identified?

If those with backup power do maintain Internet access during a power outage, 
do they lose that access if the power outage extends beyond a certain time? 
I.e., does the ISP network equipment go offline at some point in time due to 
batteries being drained and not having power generation capabilities?

Again, thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience!
Scott

From: NANOG  On Behalf Of 
richey.goldb...@gmail.com
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2022 12:38 PM
To: Scott T Anderson via NANOG 
Subject: Re: home router battery backup

At my last employer we installed lots of Adtrans at Car Dealerships, Hotels, 
and other SMBs.It was common for them to have a small UPS but 9 times out 
of 10 the UPS 2-3 times older than the life cycle of the battery and no one 
ever knew that you could change the battery in them.So they usually just 
had a heavy power strip that was prone to failing after a power loss.

We did have the option to install a battery back up on the Adtran but it would 
have been useless because most of them didn’t have any kind of backup power for 
their PBXs.


I’m pretty sure that my own power protection on my network gear and theater 
gear far exceeded the average end user’s remote offices.

-richey

From: NANOG 
mailto:nanog-bounces+richey.goldberg=gmail@nanog.org>>
 on behalf of Andy Ringsmuth mailto:a...@andyring.com>>
Date: Wednesday, January 12, 2022 at 1:16 PM
To: Scott T Anderson mailto:standers...@wisc.edu>>, Scott 
T Anderson via NANOG mailto:nanog@nanog.org>>
Subject: Re: home router battery backup

> On Jan 12, 2022, at 11:35 AM, Scott T Anderson via NANOG 
> mailto:nanog@nanog.org>> wrote:
>
> Hi NANOG mailing list,
>
> I am a graduate student, currently conducting research on how power outages 
> affect home Internet users. I know that the FCC has a regulation since 2015 
> (47 CFR Section 9.20) requiring ISPs to provide an option to voice customers 
> to purchase a battery backup for emergency voice services during power 
> outages. As this is only an option and only applies to customers who 
> subscribe to voice services, I was wondering if anyone had any insights on 
> the prevalence of battery backup for home modem/routers? I.e., what 
> percentage of home users actually install a battery backup in their home 
> modem/router or use an external UPS?
>
> Thanks.
> Scott

Given that most people barely even know what their home router is, I suspect 
the percentage would be somewhere south of 1 percent. Outside of my home, I 
honestly cannot recall EVER seeing someone’s home using a battery backup for 
their internet infrastructure.

I personally do, but of course I (and probably everyone on this list) am by no 
means representative of the population at large in this particular area.


Andy Ringsmuth
5609 Harding Drive
Lincoln, NE 68521-5831
(402) 304-0083
a...@andyring.com<mailto:a...@andyring.com>

RE: home router battery backup

[Scott T Anderson via NANOG]

Hi everyone,

Thanks very much for all the responses throughout the day. They are very 
helpful. Your (collective) answers triggered a couple follow-on questions:

For those individuals with backup battery power for their modem/router, do they 
maintain Internet access throughout a power outage (as long as their backup 
power solution works)? I.e., does the rest of the ISP network maintain service 
throughout a power outage?

Are the modems with backup power designed to operate for a specified period of 
time without power and if so, for how long and how was that duration identified?
If those with backup power do maintain Internet access during a power outage, 
do they lose that access if the power outage extends beyond a certain time? 
I.e., does the ISP network equipment go offline at some point in time due to 
batteries being drained and not having power generation capabilities?

Again, thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience!
Scott

From: NANOG  On Behalf Of 
richey.goldb...@gmail.com
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2022 12:38 PM
To: Scott T Anderson via NANOG 
Subject: Re: home router battery backup

At my last employer we installed lots of Adtrans at Car Dealerships, Hotels, 
and other SMBs.It was common for them to have a small UPS but 9 times out 
of 10 the UPS 2-3 times older than the life cycle of the battery and no one 
ever knew that you could change the battery in them.So they usually just 
had a heavy power strip that was prone to failing after a power loss.

We did have the option to install a battery back up on the Adtran but it would 
have been useless because most of them didn't have any kind of backup power for 
their PBXs.


I'm pretty sure that my own power protection on my network gear and theater 
gear far exceeded the average end user's remote offices.

-richey

From: NANOG 
mailto:nanog-bounces+richey.goldberg=gmail@nanog.org>>
 on behalf of Andy Ringsmuth mailto:a...@andyring.com>>
Date: Wednesday, January 12, 2022 at 1:16 PM
To: Scott T Anderson mailto:standers...@wisc.edu>>, Scott 
T Anderson via NANOG mailto:nanog@nanog.org>>
Subject: Re: home router battery backup

> On Jan 12, 2022, at 11:35 AM, Scott T Anderson via NANOG 
> mailto:nanog@nanog.org>> wrote:
>
> Hi NANOG mailing list,
>
> I am a graduate student, currently conducting research on how power outages 
> affect home Internet users. I know that the FCC has a regulation since 2015 
> (47 CFR Section 9.20) requiring ISPs to provide an option to voice customers 
> to purchase a battery backup for emergency voice services during power 
> outages. As this is only an option and only applies to customers who 
> subscribe to voice services, I was wondering if anyone had any insights on 
> the prevalence of battery backup for home modem/routers? I.e., what 
> percentage of home users actually install a battery backup in their home 
> modem/router or use an external UPS?
>
> Thanks.
> Scott

Given that most people barely even know what their home router is, I suspect 
the percentage would be somewhere south of 1 percent. Outside of my home, I 
honestly cannot recall EVER seeing someone's home using a battery backup for 
their internet infrastructure.

I personally do, but of course I (and probably everyone on this list) am by no 
means representative of the population at large in this particular area.


Andy Ringsmuth
5609 Harding Drive
Lincoln, NE 68521-5831
(402) 304-0083
a...@andyring.com<mailto:a...@andyring.com>

Re: home router battery backup

[Mark Tinka]

On 1/13/22 04:02, Mike Hammett wrote:


Armchair quarterbacking here:

Increasing
---
Demand
Age of infrastructure
Capital Costs
Operational Costs
Government mismanagement


Pressure from the tree huggers to lower carbon output that results from 
"traditional" power generation, and yet nobody wants to reduce their own 
demand for power.


I'm all for renewables, but at micro scale.

Renewables at grid scale, without a corresponding shift in demand 
habits, is a little naive, I think.


It's nice to say that power companies must go all renewables, when, as a 
consumer, you want to keep flipping switches like you did in the coal 
days. I just don't see it as a reality, when it comes down to it.


Mark.

Re: home router battery backup

[Mark Tinka]

On 1/12/22 23:34, Mike Hammett wrote:



Keeping one's spouse happy is FAR more important than keeping a router 
or modem online.  ;-)


In some circles, that may be one and the same thing :-).

Mark.

Re: home router battery backup

[Mark Tinka]

On 1/12/22 20:37, Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG wrote:



Same.  My home office has 3 Cyberpower 2500 VA double-conversion UPS 
units backed by Champion transfer switches.  Power goes out, and ~45 
seconds later I'm running on generator power.
My local ISP runs out of power well before I do. Thankfully there's 
Starlink.


Short of an asteroid hitting my office, it's highly unlikely I'll ever 
be offline. ;)


I'm also fortunate to have whole-home backup (as well as self-generation 
with PV), especially in a country that is currently struggling with 
sustaining energy delivery in recent years.


A number of folk, here in South Africa, have been investing in, at the 
very least, so-called Micro UPS', that are small and cheap enough to 
drive a GPON ONU + wi-fi router, via DC.


https://www.takealot.com/ultralan-micro-ups-dc-poe-45w-8-8ah/PLID70728025

Mark.

Re: home router battery backup

[Brandon Martin]

On 1/12/22 9:35 PM, Jay Hennigan wrote:
From what I've seen on the market, home router or "residential gateway" devices with built-in battery backup typically only provide backup for FXS style analog POTS services, not for data, wireless, etc. 


This was definitely the case for the Verizon FiOS I had about 14 years 
ago.  They're the only carrier I've ever used that provided regulated 
("POTS replacement", at least) voice service by means other than POTS 
and that automatically gave you a battery backup with their NID.


AT and Comcast don't seem to provide battery by default if you buy 
voice service from them.  Note that AT still offers POTS in my market 
even where they've overlaid FTTC-based VDSL (U-Verse/Lightspeed) or 
FTTH, which may be part of why.  I assume they offer it as an option if 
you inquire per the rules OP mentioned, but they don't seem to mention 
it or do it by default even on their "business class" services.


Most of our customers don't back up their home network gear. If they do 
it's most often an under-desk style UPS with 15-minute runtime that 
hasn't been serviced in a decade. Its battery is very much dead and so 
swollen that it can't be replaced without the use of some serious prying 
tools.


This has been my experience as well.  Even among customers with an 
automatic standby generator, having a UPS for their "IT" gear seems 
rare, and they're often uninterested.  They just live with things 
dropping for a minute or two while everything reboots/reconnects if the 
power glitches.


The networks I operate (some of which I own and some of which I operate 
on a contract-for-services basis) tend to only automatically provide 
batteries in MDU/MBU settings where one ONT or other NID serves multiple 
subscribers and is powered from house/common power.  We do that because 
power to the ONT/NID is then out of the hands of the subscriber, and 
they wouldn't be able to put it on a battery if they wanted to as they 
often don't even have physical access to it.


For SFU/SBU subscribers who inquire, we offer to provide and set up a 
typical "desktop" style UPS like you mention or of course try to plug 
the gear into one if they already have one.  It doesn't take a big 
battery to keep a single-port ONT and Wi-Fi router up for several hours 
which is all most customers seem to hope for if they don't have a 
generator.  Obviously we charge for the UPS, though even with a modest 
mark-up it ends up being comparable to retail pricing.  We don't really 
charge to set it up (how much set up is there?), but we also don't 
attempt to monitor or maintain them; we treat it as a one-time purchase 
and just do it to try to keep customers happy.


Based on seeing ONTs drop when I know there's a power outage in an area, 
I'd say maybe 10% of the customers I manage operations for have their 
ONT on a UPS tops.  That's including the MDU/MBUs where we've provided 
it (which accounts for maybe half or more of that 10%).


Note that none of the networks I operate offer voice service at all. 
There hasn't been enough of a demand for it to deal with the regulatory 
hassles.  I'm mostly in residential and very small business, so they 
either just use their mobiles or usually have some setup they're happy 
with.  I try to keep an ITSP with local service/support on-call to hand 
referrals in case someone asks, and usually I can get them to do me the 
same if they're working with one of their customers who are in the 
market for better IP connectivity.  It works out well enough.

Re: home router battery backup

[William Herrin]

On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 10:03 AM Scott T Anderson via NANOG
 wrote:
> requiring ISPs to provide an option to voice customers to
> purchase a battery backup for emergency voice services
> during power outages. As this is only an option and only
> applies to customers who subscribe to voice services,

It's worse than that. The FiOS ONT I had would draw on the battery to
preserve the voice ports I didn't even have an active line on, but it
wouldn't power the ethernet port! Which was crazy because my landline
was voip and the whole point of the requirement was that I be able to
dial 911. Which I couldn't do because they cut my Internet port the
voip service needs.

It's silly anyway. If you want battery backup for the ONT, if that's
important to you, just buy a cheap commodity UPS.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William Herrin
b...@herrin.us
https://bill.herrin.us/

Re: home router battery backup

[Mark Tinka]

On 1/12/22 23:01, Sabri Berisha wrote:


Same here. A small UPS that will keep my modem, router, and POE for APs alive 
for
the time I need to run outside and hook up my generator when PG decides to cut
the power again. A bigger UPS for the small 19" rack that hosts some stuff.

Top Gear Top Tip: I also have a UPS on my garage door opener. That saves the
misses from dealing with manually opening/closing the garage door if I'm not
at home.


Here in South Africa, motorized garage doors come standard with a 
12-volt battery. The problem is most home owners don't realize that they 
need to be replaced every 2 - 3 years :-). So there are many homes out 
there which have had dead batteries for more than 20 years, and folk 
just accept that the manual handle comes down when the power is out.


That is, until you remind them to replace the battery.

Mark.

Re: home router battery backup

[Mark Tinka]

On 1/12/22 21:41, Michael Thomas wrote:

We just installed a battery too, but it will probably only last ~1 day 
and much less than that in winter. We're in the process of looking at 
a generator that interfaces directly with the inverter so that it 
handles the grid, the battery, the solar and the generator along with 
the transfer switch.


Or maybe the other way around - perhaps you should be looking for an 
inverter that handles all power sources... battery, utility and 
generator, so you don't have to worry about managing the transfer.


The inverter makes the choice on what power source to use to form its 
local grid, and only calls in the generator to recharge the batteries on 
poor weather days.


I run my inverter in "off-grid" mode, and we use the utility grid as a 
generator, meaning our primary power sources are solar and battery (no 
generator here - I have enough battery and PV to last 1.5 days on a 
single charge). The benefit of running it in off-grid mode is that 
transfer from grid failure to battery is 0ms - 20ms, depending on how 
the failure occurred. Both are indistinguishable for home appliances.


Mark.

Re: home router battery backup

[Mark Tinka]

On 1/12/22 20:50, Sean Donelan wrote:
Need to look at the entire infrastructure.  Now, its less about backup 
for the hardwired router, and better utility backups and construction 
for mobile provider infrastructure.


Over here, if there is an outage, most people lose their home Internet, 
and fall back to the nearest mobile tower.


The problem is the mobile towers in residential areas are no longer 
being invested in, so they get congested either on the radio side, or 
the backhaul side, or both. I mean, you have a clear 4G or 5G signal, 
but can't pass diddly. Not even an SMS.


On top of that, they have enough Li-Ion batteries for 4 - 8 hours, 
assuming they haven't been vandalized.


Multiply that across tens of thousands of towers nation-wide, and it's a 
huge logistical problem.


Mark.

Re: home router battery backup

[John Levine]

It appears that Shawn L via NANOG  said:
>In $dayjob I work for a telco that deploys fiber to the home.  If we are
> providing voice services over fiber a battery backup is installed (we main
>tain) that powers the customer's phone in the event of a power outage.  

I have fiber service from my local RLEC.  The modem comes with a 12V battery
UPS which looks big enough to keep the phone and internet on for several days.

But as you say, it's the modem, not the router.  If the power went out
and the UPS I have for my other equipment ran down, which would take about
half an hour, I suppose I could run an ethernet cable from my laptop to
the modem.

R's,
John

Re: home router battery backup

[Jay Hennigan]

On 1/12/22 09:35, Scott T Anderson via NANOG wrote:

Hi NANOG mailing list,

I am a graduate student, currently conducting research on how power 
outages affect home Internet users. I know that the FCC has a regulation 
since 2015 (47 CFR Section 9.20) requiring ISPs to provide an option to 
voice customers to purchase a battery backup for emergency voice 
services during power outages. As this is only an option and only 
applies to customers who subscribe to voice services, I was wondering if 
anyone had any insights on the prevalence of battery backup for home 
modem/routers? I.e., what percentage of home users actually install a 
battery backup in their home modem/router or use an external UPS?


From what I've seen on the market, home router or "residential gateway" 
devices with built-in battery backup typically only provide backup for 
FXS style analog POTS services, not for data, wireless, etc.


So, if you both pay for your ISP's analog phone service and still own an 
analog phone, it will work for a while. Nothing else will. This assumes 
that your local cable company both has battery-backed trunk amplifiers 
and that they service the batteries regularly. Many don't.


It's an FCC requirement to provide the ability to make emergency voice 
calls during a local power outage. This is an attempt to emulate the 
"good old days" when twisted-pair phone service with central office 
battery was the norm.


Speaking for myself, my networking gear is UPS-backed and my house has a 
Generac auto-start generator and ATS.


Most of our customers don't back up their home network gear. If they do 
it's most often an under-desk style UPS with 15-minute runtime that 
hasn't been serviced in a decade. Its battery is very much dead and so 
swollen that it can't be replaced without the use of some serious prying 
tools.


--
Jay Hennigan - j...@west.net
Network Engineering - CCIE #7880
503 897-8550 - WB6RDV

Re: home router battery backup

[Mike Hammett]

Armchair quarterbacking here: 


Increasing 
--- 
Demand 
Age of infrastructure 
Capital Costs 
Operational Costs 
Government mismanagement 




Decreasing 
--- 
Tolerance for outages 
Tolerance for price increases 
Competence 




- 
Mike Hammett 
Intelligent Computing Solutions 

Midwest Internet Exchange 

The Brothers WISP 

- Original Message -

From: "Ahmed elBornou"  
To: "Michael Thomas"  
Cc: nanog@nanog.org 
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2022 4:37:33 PM 
Subject: Re: home router battery backup 


Do we know if there are common reasons why these power outages are on the rise 
across different states and if this is expected to continue ? 



Ahmed 


On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 11:43 AM Michael Thomas < m...@mtcc.com > wrote: 



On 1/12/22 11:25 AM, Fred Baker wrote: 
> 
>> On Jan 12, 2022, at 10:37 AM, Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG < nanog@nanog.org 
>> > wrote: 
>> 
>> On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 10:18 AM Andy Ringsmuth < a...@andyring.com > wrote: 
>> Given that most people barely even know what their home router is, I suspect 
>> the percentage would be somewhere south of 1 percent. Outside of my home, I 
>> honestly cannot recall EVER seeing someone’s home using a battery backup for 
>> their internet infrastructure. 
>> 
>> Same here. The only people I've seen that have battery backups for their 
>> home routers are fellow geeks. I even bought one and shipped it to my 
>> ~70-year-old mother...and she just doesn't want to install it. "Too 
>> complicated". 
>> 
>> I personally do, but of course I (and probably everyone on this list) am by 
>> no means representative of the population at large in this particular area. 
>> 
>> Same. My home office has 3 Cyberpower 2500 VA double-conversion UPS units 
>> backed by Champion transfer switches. Power goes out, and ~45 seconds later 
>> I'm running on generator power. 
>> My local ISP runs out of power well before I do. Thankfully there's 
>> Starlink. 
>> 
>> Short of an asteroid hitting my office, it's highly unlikely I'll ever be 
>> offline. ;) 
> In my case (California, home of SCE and PG), we have been notified by our 
> electrical grid operators that power can go down at any time, for any reason, 
> and any duration. I have just moved, so I am speaking in a historical context 
> and future plans, but we have solar electricity as well and have a battery in 
> the home that in effect backs up part of the house. We don't back up the 
> Internet service, because frankly if power is down in the grid I'm not sure 
> my favorite router is all that important, in addition to the considerations 
> already mentioned. But power can and does go down - even without asteroids. 

We just installed a battery too, but it will probably only last ~1 day 
and much less than that in winter. We're in the process of looking at a 
generator that interfaces directly with the inverter so that it handles 
the grid, the battery, the solar and the generator along with the 
transfer switch. It's gone from being the occasional nuisance in the 
winter to all year long these days. Our power outage over the holidays 
lasted 12 days. This isn't just a rural problem anymore in California, 
it's a pretty much everywhere problem now. 

Mike 

Re: home router battery backup

[Michael Thomas]

On 1/12/22 2:37 PM, Ahmed elBornou wrote:
Do we know if there are common reasons why these power outages are on 
the rise across different states and if this is expected to continue ?


Climate change. We're living it. That and PG is corrupt.

Mike



Ahmed

On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 11:43 AM Michael Thomas  wrote:


On 1/12/22 11:25 AM, Fred Baker wrote:
>
>> On Jan 12, 2022, at 10:37 AM, Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG
 wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 10:18 AM Andy Ringsmuth
 wrote:
>> Given that most people barely even know what their home router
is, I suspect the percentage would be somewhere south of 1
percent. Outside of my home, I honestly cannot recall EVER seeing
someone’s home using a battery backup for their internet
infrastructure.
>>
>> Same here.  The only people I've seen that have battery backups
for their home routers are fellow geeks.  I even bought one and
shipped it to my ~70-year-old mother...and she just doesn't want
to install it.  "Too complicated".
>>
>> I personally do, but of course I (and probably everyone on this
list) am by no means representative of the population at large in
this particular area.
>>
>> Same.  My home office has 3 Cyberpower 2500 VA
double-conversion UPS units backed by Champion transfer switches. 
Power goes out, and ~45 seconds later I'm running on generator power.
>> My local ISP runs out of power well before I do. Thankfully
there's Starlink.
>>
>> Short of an asteroid hitting my office, it's highly unlikely
I'll ever be offline. ;)
> In my case (California, home of SCE and PG), we have been
notified by our electrical grid operators that power can go down
at any time, for any reason, and any duration. I have just moved,
so I am speaking in a historical context and future plans, but we
have solar electricity as well and have a battery in the home that
in effect backs up part of the house. We don't back up the
Internet service, because frankly if power is down in the grid I'm
not sure my favorite router is all that important, in addition to
the considerations already mentioned. But power can and does go
down - even without asteroids.

We just installed a battery too, but it will probably only last ~1
day
and much less than that in winter. We're in the process of looking
at a
generator that interfaces directly with the inverter so that it
handles
the grid, the battery, the solar and the generator along with the
transfer switch. It's gone from being the occasional nuisance in the
winter to all year long these days. Our power outage over the
holidays
lasted 12 days. This isn't just a rural problem anymore in
California,
it's a pretty much everywhere problem now.

Mike

Re: home router battery backup

[Andy Ringsmuth]

>>> On Jan 12, 2022, at 11:35 AM, Scott T Anderson via NANOG 
>>> wrote:
>>> services, I was wondering if anyone had any insights on the prevalence of
>>> battery backup for home modem/routers? I.e., what percentage of home users
>>> actually install a battery backup in their home modem/router or use an 
>>> external
>>> UPS?
> 
>> Given that most people barely even know what their home router is, I suspect 
>> the
>> percentage would be somewhere south of 1 percent. Outside of my home, I
>> honestly cannot recall EVER seeing someone’s home using a battery backup for
>> their internet infrastructure.
> 
> Same here. A small UPS that will keep my modem, router, and POE for APs alive 
> for
> the time I need to run outside and hook up my generator when PG decides to 
> cut
> the power again. A bigger UPS for the small 19" rack that hosts some stuff.
> 
> Top Gear Top Tip: I also have a UPS on my garage door opener. That saves the
> misses from dealing with manually opening/closing the garage door if I'm not
> at home.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Sabri

Great idea on the garage opener. I got a new one a year ago with an integrated 
battery for exactly that purpose. And, although I didn’t realize it when I 
bought it, it also lets me tie it to Amazon so they can open the door, leave my 
packages inside, and close the door. No more porch pirates!


-Andy

Re: home router battery backup

[Ahmed elBornou]

Do we know if there are common reasons why these power outages are on the
rise across different states and if this is expected to continue ?

Ahmed

On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 11:43 AM Michael Thomas  wrote:

>
> On 1/12/22 11:25 AM, Fred Baker wrote:
> >
> >> On Jan 12, 2022, at 10:37 AM, Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG <
> nanog@nanog.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 10:18 AM Andy Ringsmuth 
> wrote:
> >> Given that most people barely even know what their home router is, I
> suspect the percentage would be somewhere south of 1 percent. Outside of my
> home, I honestly cannot recall EVER seeing someone’s home using a battery
> backup for their internet infrastructure.
> >>
> >> Same here.  The only people I've seen that have battery backups for
> their home routers are fellow geeks.  I even bought one and shipped it to
> my ~70-year-old mother...and she just doesn't want to install it.  "Too
> complicated".
> >>
> >> I personally do, but of course I (and probably everyone on this list)
> am by no means representative of the population at large in this particular
> area.
> >>
> >> Same.  My home office has 3 Cyberpower 2500 VA double-conversion UPS
> units backed by Champion transfer switches.  Power goes out, and ~45
> seconds later I'm running on generator power.
> >> My local ISP runs out of power well before I do.  Thankfully there's
> Starlink.
> >>
> >> Short of an asteroid hitting my office, it's highly unlikely I'll ever
> be offline. ;)
> > In my case (California, home of SCE and PG), we have been notified by
> our electrical grid operators that power can go down at any time, for any
> reason, and any duration. I have just moved, so I am speaking in a
> historical context and future plans, but we have solar electricity as well
> and have a battery in the home that in effect backs up part of the house.
> We don't back up the Internet service, because frankly if power is down in
> the grid I'm not sure my favorite router is all that important, in addition
> to the considerations already mentioned. But power can and does go down -
> even without asteroids.
>
> We just installed a battery too, but it will probably only last ~1 day
> and much less than that in winter. We're in the process of looking at a
> generator that interfaces directly with the inverter so that it handles
> the grid, the battery, the solar and the generator along with the
> transfer switch. It's gone from being the occasional nuisance in the
> winter to all year long these days. Our power outage over the holidays
> lasted 12 days. This isn't just a rural problem anymore in California,
> it's a pretty much everywhere problem now.
>
> Mike
>
>

Re: home router battery backup

[Keith Stokes]

Many times those coincide. ;-)


On 1/12/22 3:34 PM, Mike Hammett wrote:
"Top Gear Top Tip: I also have a UPS on my garage door opener. That 
saves the
misses from dealing with manually opening/closing the garage door if 
I'm not

at home."


Keeping one's spouse happy is FAR more important than keeping a router 
or modem online.  ;-)




-
Mike Hammett
Intelligent Computing Solutions <http://www.ics-il.com/>
<https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL><https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb><https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions><https://twitter.com/ICSIL>
Midwest Internet Exchange <http://www.midwest-ix.com/>
<https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix><https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange><https://twitter.com/mdwestix>
The Brothers WISP <http://www.thebrotherswisp.com/>
<https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp><https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg>

*From: *"Sabri Berisha" 
*To: *"nanog" 
*Sent: *Wednesday, January 12, 2022 3:01:27 PM
*Subject: *Re: home router battery backup

- On Jan 12, 2022, at 10:15 AM, Andy Ringsmuth a...@andyring.com 
wrote:


Hi,

>> On Jan 12, 2022, at 11:35 AM, Scott T Anderson via NANOG 


>> wrote:
>> services, I was wondering if anyone had any insights on the 
prevalence of
>> battery backup for home modem/routers? I.e., what percentage of 
home users
>> actually install a battery backup in their home modem/router or use 
an external

>> UPS?

> Given that most people barely even know what their home router is, I 
suspect the

> percentage would be somewhere south of 1 percent. Outside of my home, I
> honestly cannot recall EVER seeing someone’s home using a battery 
backup for

> their internet infrastructure.

Same here. A small UPS that will keep my modem, router, and POE for 
APs alive for
the time I need to run outside and hook up my generator when PG 
decides to cut
the power again. A bigger UPS for the small 19" rack that hosts some 
stuff.


Top Gear Top Tip: I also have a UPS on my garage door opener. That 
saves the
misses from dealing with manually opening/closing the garage door if 
I'm not

at home.

Thanks,

Sabri


--
Keith Stokes
SalonBiz, Inc

Re: home router battery backup

[Mike Hammett]

" Top Gear Top Tip: I also have a UPS on my garage door opener. That saves the 
misses from dealing with manually opening/closing the garage door if I'm not 
at home." 




Keeping one's spouse happy is FAR more important than keeping a router or modem 
online. ;-) 



- 
Mike Hammett 
Intelligent Computing Solutions 

Midwest Internet Exchange 

The Brothers WISP 

- Original Message -

From: "Sabri Berisha"  
To: "nanog"  
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2022 3:01:27 PM 
Subject: Re: home router battery backup 

- On Jan 12, 2022, at 10:15 AM, Andy Ringsmuth a...@andyring.com wrote: 

Hi, 

>> On Jan 12, 2022, at 11:35 AM, Scott T Anderson via NANOG  
>> wrote: 
>> services, I was wondering if anyone had any insights on the prevalence of 
>> battery backup for home modem/routers? I.e., what percentage of home users 
>> actually install a battery backup in their home modem/router or use an 
>> external 
>> UPS? 

> Given that most people barely even know what their home router is, I suspect 
> the 
> percentage would be somewhere south of 1 percent. Outside of my home, I 
> honestly cannot recall EVER seeing someone’s home using a battery backup for 
> their internet infrastructure. 

Same here. A small UPS that will keep my modem, router, and POE for APs alive 
for 
the time I need to run outside and hook up my generator when PG decides to 
cut 
the power again. A bigger UPS for the small 19" rack that hosts some stuff. 

Top Gear Top Tip: I also have a UPS on my garage door opener. That saves the 
misses from dealing with manually opening/closing the garage door if I'm not 
at home. 

Thanks, 

Sabri 

Re: home router battery backup

[Sabri Berisha]

- On Jan 12, 2022, at 10:15 AM, Andy Ringsmuth a...@andyring.com wrote:

Hi,

>> On Jan 12, 2022, at 11:35 AM, Scott T Anderson via NANOG 
>> wrote:
>> services, I was wondering if anyone had any insights on the prevalence of
>> battery backup for home modem/routers? I.e., what percentage of home users
>> actually install a battery backup in their home modem/router or use an 
>> external
>> UPS?

> Given that most people barely even know what their home router is, I suspect 
> the
> percentage would be somewhere south of 1 percent. Outside of my home, I
> honestly cannot recall EVER seeing someone’s home using a battery backup for
> their internet infrastructure.

Same here. A small UPS that will keep my modem, router, and POE for APs alive 
for
the time I need to run outside and hook up my generator when PG decides to cut
the power again. A bigger UPS for the small 19" rack that hosts some stuff.

Top Gear Top Tip: I also have a UPS on my garage door opener. That saves the
misses from dealing with manually opening/closing the garage door if I'm not
at home.

Thanks,

Sabri

Re: home router battery backup

[Shawn L via NANOG]

Yes.  In our scenario the ONT is basically an ethernet bridge and provides a 
SIP end-point for calls.  There are models that have the router built-into them 
as well, but we've chosen not to use them at this point.
 
The battery we install is designed to run the voice portion for ~ 8 hours 
(customers are offered a longer run-time battery for an additional fee).  
There's some sensor wires from the ONT to the UPS so that we know when power is 
out, the battery is low or needs to be replaced, etc.  It also tells the ONT to 
turn off ethernet services when the power is out to preserve battery for the 
phone portion.  Though that behavior can be changed in software.
 
 
 
-Original Message-
From: "Michael Thomas" 
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2022 2:48pm
To: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: home router battery backup



 
On 1/12/22 10:54 AM, Shawn L via NANOG wrote:
In $dayjob I work for a telco that deploys fiber to the home.  If we are 
providing voice services over fiber a battery backup is installed (we maintain) 
that powers the customer's phone in the event of a power outage.  It does not 
power their router, etc.  99% of the customers do not install a UPS for their 
router, etc.  We try to explain that to customers, but we still get calls that 
they can't get on the Internet when their power is out.
So your voice is part of the modem which isn't a router? I assume it uses IP 
for voice. 

Mike

Re: home router battery backup

[Michael Thomas]

On 1/12/22 10:54 AM, Shawn L via NANOG wrote:


In $dayjob I work for a telco that deploys fiber to the home.  If we 
are providing voice services over fiber a battery backup is installed 
(we maintain) that powers the customer's phone in the event of a power 
outage.  It does not power their router, etc.  99% of the customers do 
not install a UPS for their router, etc.  We try to explain that to 
customers, but we still get calls that they can't get on the Internet 
when their power is out.


So your voice is part of the modem which isn't a router? I assume it 
uses IP for voice.


Mike

Re: home router battery backup

[Michael Thomas]

On 1/12/22 11:25 AM, Fred Baker wrote:



On Jan 12, 2022, at 10:37 AM, Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG  
wrote:

On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 10:18 AM Andy Ringsmuth  wrote:
Given that most people barely even know what their home router is, I suspect 
the percentage would be somewhere south of 1 percent. Outside of my home, I 
honestly cannot recall EVER seeing someone’s home using a battery backup for 
their internet infrastructure.

Same here.  The only people I've seen that have battery backups for their home routers 
are fellow geeks.  I even bought one and shipped it to my ~70-year-old mother...and she 
just doesn't want to install it.  "Too complicated".
  
I personally do, but of course I (and probably everyone on this list) am by no means representative of the population at large in this particular area.


Same.  My home office has 3 Cyberpower 2500 VA double-conversion UPS units 
backed by Champion transfer switches.  Power goes out, and ~45 seconds later 
I'm running on generator power.
My local ISP runs out of power well before I do.  Thankfully there's Starlink.

Short of an asteroid hitting my office, it's highly unlikely I'll ever be 
offline. ;)

In my case (California, home of SCE and PG), we have been notified by our 
electrical grid operators that power can go down at any time, for any reason, and 
any duration. I have just moved, so I am speaking in a historical context and 
future plans, but we have solar electricity as well and have a battery in the home 
that in effect backs up part of the house. We don't back up the Internet service, 
because frankly if power is down in the grid I'm not sure my favorite router is all 
that important, in addition to the considerations already mentioned. But power can 
and does go down - even without asteroids.


We just installed a battery too, but it will probably only last ~1 day 
and much less than that in winter. We're in the process of looking at a 
generator that interfaces directly with the inverter so that it handles 
the grid, the battery, the solar and the generator along with the 
transfer switch. It's gone from being the occasional nuisance in the 
winter to all year long these days. Our power outage over the holidays 
lasted 12 days. This isn't just a rural problem anymore in California, 
it's a pretty much everywhere problem now.


Mike

Re: home router battery backup

[Justin Streiner]

I'm one of the atypical users, when compared to the population at large,
but probably in line for this audience.

Critical gear is on a transfer switch and both inputs to that come from
UPSs that are on separate circuits. Less critical gear is fed from one UPS
or the other to balance the load and allow headroom for a load shift due to
a UPS failure.  My office gear is on a separate UPS on a different circuit.

Thank you
jms

On Wed, Jan 12, 2022, 13:01 Scott T Anderson via NANOG 
wrote:

> Hi NANOG mailing list,
>
>
>
> I am a graduate student, currently conducting research on how power
> outages affect home Internet users. I know that the FCC has a regulation
> since 2015 (47 CFR Section 9.20) requiring ISPs to provide an option to
> voice customers to purchase a battery backup for emergency voice services
> during power outages. As this is only an option and only applies to
> customers who subscribe to voice services, I was wondering if anyone had
> any insights on the prevalence of battery backup for home modem/routers?
> I.e., what percentage of home users actually install a battery backup in
> their home modem/router or use an external UPS?
>
>
>
> Thanks.
>
> Scott
>
>
>
> Reference for 47 CFR Section 9.20:
> https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-A/part-9/subpart-H/section-9.20
>
>
>

Re: home router battery backup

[Fred Baker]

> On Jan 12, 2022, at 10:37 AM, Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG  
> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 10:18 AM Andy Ringsmuth  wrote:
> Given that most people barely even know what their home router is, I suspect 
> the percentage would be somewhere south of 1 percent. Outside of my home, I 
> honestly cannot recall EVER seeing someone’s home using a battery backup for 
> their internet infrastructure.
> 
> Same here.  The only people I've seen that have battery backups for their 
> home routers are fellow geeks.  I even bought one and shipped it to my 
> ~70-year-old mother...and she just doesn't want to install it.  "Too 
> complicated".
>  
> I personally do, but of course I (and probably everyone on this list) am by 
> no means representative of the population at large in this particular area.
> 
> Same.  My home office has 3 Cyberpower 2500 VA double-conversion UPS units 
> backed by Champion transfer switches.  Power goes out, and ~45 seconds later 
> I'm running on generator power.
> My local ISP runs out of power well before I do.  Thankfully there's Starlink.
> 
> Short of an asteroid hitting my office, it's highly unlikely I'll ever be 
> offline. ;)

In my case (California, home of SCE and PG), we have been notified by our 
electrical grid operators that power can go down at any time, for any reason, 
and any duration. I have just moved, so I am speaking in a historical context 
and future plans, but we have solar electricity as well and have a battery in 
the home that in effect backs up part of the house. We don't back up the 
Internet service, because frankly if power is down in the grid I'm not sure my 
favorite router is all that important, in addition to the considerations 
already mentioned. But power can and does go down - even without asteroids.

Re: home router battery backup

[Ryan Wilkins]

When I subscribed to Windstream fiber at my house a couple years ago I didn’t 
order voice service but they installed a UPS anyway.  Curiously, they also 
connected the wires meant for voice lines to their outdoor equipment mounted on 
the house.  The guy told me he did that after he hooked it up which I was 
mildly annoyed about since I had planned to use that cable for other reasons.  
He was pushing voice service and said I was hooked up for voice should I want 
to do this in the future.  I’m unsure if this is a standard Windstream install 
or what.

To add to that, I have my own UPS installed on some of my indoor equipment.. 
router, one WiFi AP, Synology file server, x86 linux server.  While we almost 
never lose power at my house, yesterday we lost power for 7 minutes.  I 
maintained Internet connectivity throughout the brief outage.

Ryan Wilkins

> On Jan 12, 2022, at 12:35 PM, Scott T Anderson via NANOG  
> wrote:
> 
> Hi NANOG mailing list,
>  
> I am a graduate student, currently conducting research on how power outages 
> affect home Internet users. I know that the FCC has a regulation since 2015 
> (47 CFR Section 9.20) requiring ISPs to provide an option to voice customers 
> to purchase a battery backup for emergency voice services during power 
> outages. As this is only an option and only applies to customers who 
> subscribe to voice services, I was wondering if anyone had any insights on 
> the prevalence of battery backup for home modem/routers? I.e., what 
> percentage of home users actually install a battery backup in their home 
> modem/router or use an external UPS?
>  
> Thanks.
> Scott
>  
> Reference for 47 CFR Section 9.20: 
> https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-A/part-9/subpart-H/section-9.20
>  
> 

RE: home router battery backup

[Shawn L via NANOG]

In $dayjob I work for a telco that deploys fiber to the home.  If we are 
providing voice services over fiber a battery backup is installed (we maintain) 
that powers the customer's phone in the event of a power outage.  It does not 
power their router, etc.  99% of the customers do not install a UPS for their 
router, etc.  We try to explain that to customers, but we still get calls that 
they can't get on the Internet when their power is out.
 

-Original Message-
From: "Scott T Anderson via NANOG" 
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2022 12:35pm
To: "nanog@nanog.org" 
Subject: home router battery backup




Hi NANOG mailing list,
 
I am a graduate student, currently conducting research on how power outages 
affect home Internet users. I know that the FCC has a regulation since 2015 (47 
CFR Section 9.20) requiring ISPs to provide an option to voice customers to 
purchase a battery backup for emergency voice services during power outages. As 
this is only an option and only applies to customers who subscribe to voice 
services, I was wondering if anyone had any insights on the prevalence of 
battery backup for home modem/routers? I.e., what percentage of home users 
actually install a battery backup in their home modem/router or use an external 
UPS?
 
Thanks.
Scott
 
Reference for 47 CFR Section 9.20: [  
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-A/part-9/subpart-H/section-9.20
 ]( 
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-A/part-9/subpart-H/section-9.20
 )
 

Re: home router battery backup

[Michael Thomas]

On 1/12/22 10:43 AM, Dave Taht wrote:

I too see very little gear protected by a UPS. In nicaragua, even,
when I lived there, and the power flickered 6x times a day, "normal"
people just accepted it.

However, with the huge implosion of battery costs and increase in
power from the cellphone revolution, and how little power most home
routing gear uses (usually under 6w) it really does strike me
as plausible we could see a capable battery land in more home routing
gear as a feature more users might buy, and not just for backup
telephony..


That might be good for transient glitches, but with real power outages 
it begs the question of everything else that needs power. We deal with 
days long outages all of the time because of PG, so the router being 
powered is just a small piece of the equation.


Mike

Re: home router battery backup

[Sean Donelan]

Need to look at the entire infrastructure.  Now, its less about backup for 
the hardwired router, and better utility backups and construction for 
mobile provider infrastructure.


Almost all households have at least one mobile phone, with built-in 
battery backup :-)  We used to have public pay telephones for people 
without phones in their homes, but not anymore.



Landline telephone - 40% households (70% in 2010, and 96% in 2000)

Smart speakers - 50% households (introduced in 2014)

Cellular smartphone - 80% households (34% in 2010, introduced 2007)
  - yes, I know, the first smartphone was 1994, but the modern smartphone
was introduced in 2007.

Cellular phone (anytype) - 97% households (80% in 2010, 55% in 2000)
  - older and poorer people have 'dumb' cell phones - WEA doesn't reach
everyone.

Re: home router battery backup

[Dave Taht]

I too see very little gear protected by a UPS. In nicaragua, even,
when I lived there, and the power flickered 6x times a day, "normal"
people just accepted it.

However, with the huge implosion of battery costs and increase in
power from the cellphone revolution, and how little power most home
routing gear uses (usually under 6w) it really does strike me
as plausible we could see a capable battery land in more home routing
gear as a feature more users might buy, and not just for backup
telephony..


On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 10:39 AM Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG
 wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 10:18 AM Andy Ringsmuth  wrote:
>>
>> Given that most people barely even know what their home router is, I suspect 
>> the percentage would be somewhere south of 1 percent. Outside of my home, I 
>> honestly cannot recall EVER seeing someone’s home using a battery backup for 
>> their internet infrastructure.
>
>
> Same here.  The only people I've seen that have battery backups for their 
> home routers are fellow geeks.  I even bought one and shipped it to my 
> ~70-year-old mother...and she just doesn't want to install it.  "Too 
> complicated".
>
>>
>> I personally do, but of course I (and probably everyone on this list) am by 
>> no means representative of the population at large in this particular area.
>
>
> Same.  My home office has 3 Cyberpower 2500 VA double-conversion UPS units 
> backed by Champion transfer switches.  Power goes out, and ~45 seconds later 
> I'm running on generator power.
> My local ISP runs out of power well before I do.  Thankfully there's Starlink.
>
> Short of an asteroid hitting my office, it's highly unlikely I'll ever be 
> offline. ;)
>
> -A
>


-- 
I tried to build a better future, a few times:
https://wayforward.archive.org/?site=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.icei.org

Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC

Re: home router battery backup

[Michael Thomas]

On 1/12/22 10:15 AM, Andy Ringsmuth wrote:

On Jan 12, 2022, at 11:35 AM, Scott T Anderson via NANOG  
wrote:

Hi NANOG mailing list,
  
I am a graduate student, currently conducting research on how power outages affect home Internet users. I know that the FCC has a regulation since 2015 (47 CFR Section 9.20) requiring ISPs to provide an option to voice customers to purchase a battery backup for emergency voice services during power outages. As this is only an option and only applies to customers who subscribe to voice services, I was wondering if anyone had any insights on the prevalence of battery backup for home modem/routers? I.e., what percentage of home users actually install a battery backup in their home modem/router or use an external UPS?
  
Thanks.

Scott

Given that most people barely even know what their home router is, I suspect 
the percentage would be somewhere south of 1 percent. Outside of my home, I 
honestly cannot recall EVER seeing someone’s home using a battery backup for 
their internet infrastructure.

I personally do, but of course I (and probably everyone on this list) am by no 
means representative of the population at large in this particular area.

Don't underestimate the disaster that is PG in California. We have a 
generator so don't really need battery backup for the router, but we're 
lucky since their DSLAM is battery backed up from the CO. Lots of cable 
users are not so lucky as they found out when PG started routinely 
having blackouts so they don't burn the state down. This shows why MSO 
should have the same mandate as telcos for battery backup to their headends.


Mike

Re: home router battery backup

[richey goldberg]

At my last employer we installed lots of Adtrans at Car Dealerships, Hotels, 
and other SMBs.It was common for them to have a small UPS but 9 times out 
of 10 the UPS 2-3 times older than the life cycle of the battery and no one 
ever knew that you could change the battery in them.So they usually just 
had a heavy power strip that was prone to failing after a power loss.

We did have the option to install a battery back up on the Adtran but it would 
have been useless because most of them didn’t have any kind of backup power for 
their PBXs.


I’m pretty sure that my own power protection on my network gear and theater 
gear far exceeded the average end user’s remote offices.

-richey

From: NANOG  on behalf of 
Andy Ringsmuth 
Date: Wednesday, January 12, 2022 at 1:16 PM
To: Scott T Anderson , Scott T Anderson via NANOG 

Subject: Re: home router battery backup

> On Jan 12, 2022, at 11:35 AM, Scott T Anderson via NANOG  
> wrote:
>
> Hi NANOG mailing list,
>
> I am a graduate student, currently conducting research on how power outages 
> affect home Internet users. I know that the FCC has a regulation since 2015 
> (47 CFR Section 9.20) requiring ISPs to provide an option to voice customers 
> to purchase a battery backup for emergency voice services during power 
> outages. As this is only an option and only applies to customers who 
> subscribe to voice services, I was wondering if anyone had any insights on 
> the prevalence of battery backup for home modem/routers? I.e., what 
> percentage of home users actually install a battery backup in their home 
> modem/router or use an external UPS?
>
> Thanks.
> Scott

Given that most people barely even know what their home router is, I suspect 
the percentage would be somewhere south of 1 percent. Outside of my home, I 
honestly cannot recall EVER seeing someone’s home using a battery backup for 
their internet infrastructure.

I personally do, but of course I (and probably everyone on this list) am by no 
means representative of the population at large in this particular area.


Andy Ringsmuth
5609 Harding Drive
Lincoln, NE 68521-5831
(402) 304-0083
a...@andyring.com

Re: home router battery backup

[Aaron C. de Bruyn via NANOG]

On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 10:18 AM Andy Ringsmuth  wrote:

> Given that most people barely even know what their home router is, I
> suspect the percentage would be somewhere south of 1 percent. Outside of my
> home, I honestly cannot recall EVER seeing someone’s home using a battery
> backup for their internet infrastructure.
>

Same here.  The only people I've seen that have battery backups for their
home routers are fellow geeks.  I even bought one and shipped it to my
~70-year-old mother...and she just doesn't want to install it.  "Too
complicated".


> I personally do, but of course I (and probably everyone on this list) am
> by no means representative of the population at large in this particular
> area.
>

Same.  My home office has 3 Cyberpower 2500 VA double-conversion UPS units
backed by Champion transfer switches.  Power goes out, and ~45 seconds
later I'm running on generator power.
My local ISP runs out of power well before I do.  Thankfully there's
Starlink.

Short of an asteroid hitting my office, it's highly unlikely I'll ever be
offline. ;)

-A

Re: home router battery backup

[Andy Ringsmuth]

> On Jan 12, 2022, at 11:35 AM, Scott T Anderson via NANOG  
> wrote:
> 
> Hi NANOG mailing list,
>  
> I am a graduate student, currently conducting research on how power outages 
> affect home Internet users. I know that the FCC has a regulation since 2015 
> (47 CFR Section 9.20) requiring ISPs to provide an option to voice customers 
> to purchase a battery backup for emergency voice services during power 
> outages. As this is only an option and only applies to customers who 
> subscribe to voice services, I was wondering if anyone had any insights on 
> the prevalence of battery backup for home modem/routers? I.e., what 
> percentage of home users actually install a battery backup in their home 
> modem/router or use an external UPS?
>  
> Thanks.
> Scott

Given that most people barely even know what their home router is, I suspect 
the percentage would be somewhere south of 1 percent. Outside of my home, I 
honestly cannot recall EVER seeing someone’s home using a battery backup for 
their internet infrastructure.

I personally do, but of course I (and probably everyone on this list) am by no 
means representative of the population at large in this particular area.


Andy Ringsmuth
5609 Harding Drive
Lincoln, NE 68521-5831
(402) 304-0083
a...@andyring.com

home router battery backup

[Scott T Anderson via NANOG]

Hi NANOG mailing list,

I am a graduate student, currently conducting research on how power outages 
affect home Internet users. I know that the FCC has a regulation since 2015 (47 
CFR Section 9.20) requiring ISPs to provide an option to voice customers to 
purchase a battery backup for emergency voice services during power outages. As 
this is only an option and only applies to customers who subscribe to voice 
services, I was wondering if anyone had any insights on the prevalence of 
battery backup for home modem/routers? I.e., what percentage of home users 
actually install a battery backup in their home modem/router or use an external 
UPS?

Thanks.
Scott

Reference for 47 CFR Section 9.20: 
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-A/part-9/subpart-H/section-9.20