Maintaining telephone service during electrical outages, primarily through hurricanes and storms, is vital. At Home Telecom, we want to take a moment to focus on and explain how our fiber battery backup with SafeGuard can help you stay connected during electrical outages.
What is a Fiber Battery Backup?
If your power fails, your telephone service doesn’t work, including not being able to call 911 and inhibiting any home security or medical monitoring systems that specifically rely on telephone service. However, if your Home Telecom equipment includes a backup battery and you subscribe to our affordable SafeGuard service, we will provide replacement batteries as needed. If you have a backup battery but don’t subscribe to SafeGuard, it is your responsibility to monitor your fiber backup battery and replace it when necessary. If your current equipment doesn’t have a backup battery and you’re not a SafeGuard subscriber, you are responsible for supplying backup power for your home telephone services.
It’s essential to remember that cordless phones all require power and will not function in the event of a power outage, even if you have a fiber backup battery. We recommend that you have a corded phone plugged directly into your home’s wiring and a backup battery. We also advise that you have another method of dialing 911 for emergencies, such as a cellular phone. If your home alarm system relies on telephone or internet service, these systems will not function during power outages without battery backup power. Home Telecom recommends using cellular backup to ensure that any monitored home alarms or medical devices have connectivity during power outages.
Monitoring Your Fiber Battery Backup
The new batteries we provide have an eight-hour rating in idle mode. You may purchase up to three additional batteries to provide a full 24-hour backup. It’s essential to note that multiple eight-hour batteries will require rotation by customers to achieve more extended periods of fiber battery backup. If you want to stock up on batteries, the eight-hour Sealed Lead Acid (SLA) battery can remain at room temperature without charging for up to a year; however, it is not recommended. We recommend that you change SLA batteries every six to nine months.
When you use the fiber battery backup, the intention is for short, urgent or emergency phone calls. Therefore, we recommend using your telephone service sparingly to preserve battery life. While the estimated battery life is between three to five years, actual results greatly vary depending on usage, frequency of outages, temperature extremes and even environmental conditions. Therefore, we recommend you check your battery often to ensure its life is at maximum capacity so you are prepared for an emergency.
Fiber Battery Backup Equipment Instructions
We’ve put together instructions to help determine if your battery needs replacement.
Indoor ONT
CyberPower PSU
The status lights are located on the front of the CyberPower PSU. The battery status light will be red if your battery requires replacement or is missing. If your battery needs replacement, you will also hear an audible alarm once every 15 minutes.
Outdoor ONT
CyberPower PSU
The status lights are on the front of the CyberPower PSU. The replace battery light on the right will appear red if it needs replacement. You will also hear an audible alarm with two beeps every three minutes when you need to replace the battery. If you are running on battery power and the battery is running low, you will hear an alarm beep four times every two minutes. You can silence the alarm for 24 hours by pressing and holding the blue button on the front of the power supply unit for three full seconds. The CyberPower PSU unit also features a missing battery status light, which will appear red if a battery is not connected to the power supply.
APC PowerShield PSU
You will see status lights on the right front of the APC PSU unit. The battery status light will appear red if you need to replace the battery or if it’s missing. Depending on the APC PowerShield PSU model, there may or may not be an alarm if the battery is low or missing. The models that feature an audible alarm will beep once every 15 minutes to notify you that the battery requires replacement. To see if the battery is missing, you need to open the door and look for a battery.
Digital Voice eMTA
Arris eMTA (telephone modem)
If you have the Arris eMTA model, you will see status lights on the front of the telephone modem. First, look at the battery status light. You will see a solid light if the battery is low or good. The light will begin flashing if the battery needs replacement. If the light is off, it means the battery is missing.
Available Fiber Battery Backup Options
Home Telecom offers customers new batteries for purchase for $25.00 for an eMTA battery. Optical Network Terminal (ONT) batteries are $50.00. We may require an additional fee if we have to install the battery in your home. Contact Home Telecom at 800-577-2799 for further information or to order replacement batteries.
To review more information about Home Telecom’s fiber battery backups, visit our website.