Power backup for DSL modem?

[mastrdrver]

Is it possible to do this with like a small UPS unit?

I've never had one before and wanted to make sure before I did get one. Also if any one had any suggestions, I'd really appreciate it.

I'm not really interested in a UPS big enough for my desktop, it would just be nice to be able to use the internet with my laptop or phone when I lose power because of storms.

Thanks in advance.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Yeah. Modems use very little power so you don't need a very powerful one. I buy CyberPower UPS's and love them. I currently have four and just today they reminded me why I bought them (lost power for a second).

 

[OneMoar]

worth mentioning that UPS's are not designed to supply a low sustained load they are very inefficient by nature, and you will be lucky to get 15M of run time even with a low load < 3 Amps
you best option is a DC power source such as battery bank and a buck-regulator to provide the current voltage to the modem I just wired my modem and router to our solar bank the bank its self is capable of running the modem router for indefinite periods assuming at least 3 hours of full sun per day

 

[Bill_Bright]

worth mentioning that UPS's are not designed to supply a low sustained load they are very inefficient by nature, and you will be lucky to get 15M of run time even with a low load < 3 Amps

What? Sorry but that is just not true and really, it makes no sense. That's just not how batteries work. A battery does not run down that fast unless it has a very large load, or the battery is bad.

Got a link to something that shows that runtimes decrease that dramatically when loads are very low? While the efficiency does indeed drop, the runtimes increase dramatically!

That's like saying you cannot run a flashlight from a car battery. You can - and for many many many many hours. And car batteries are SLA (sealed lead-acid) batteries, the exact same technologies as those used in a UPS.

I've been a strong advocate for using a good UPS with AVR for over 25 years. And I power my i7, 16Gb PC, two 22" CCFL backlit LCD monitors, plus all my network gear (wireless router, modem and 4 port switch) plus my phone through my APC Back-UPS Pro XS 1500 (865W). Note the first graph that shows how the minimum runtimes increase as the load drops. Note for all of APCs UPS, runtimes increase as loads drop.

I live in Tornado Alley and unfortunately, power outages are not uncommon. My 1500VA UPS will power my computer and both monitors during a full power outage for nearly 20 minutes. If I shutdown my computer and power off both my monitors, this UPS will keep my network "alive" for nearly 3 hours.

Many around here use a small UPS on their garage door openers. These commonly use the same 12V 8Ahr SLA batteries as found in many computer UPS. When not lifting and lowering the door, these UPS are simply keeping the opener in "standby mode" - very low loads (a few mW) to keep the receiver and doorbell button circuits alive during power outages and they regularly keep these very low load circuits alive for 2 full days or longer.

Liftmaster
Genie Battery Backup (note this claims 24 hours, but my neighbor has this one and it still lifted the door on day 3 of a 5 day power outage).

I also have a 1500VA UPS on my home theater system which includes a DVR which is little more than a cable box with a HD. That UPS will hold power to the DVR for over 10 hours and still record my shows if I never turn on the TV or power up the receiver. And if I unplug the TV, HT receiver, and Blu-ray player (taking them totally off-line, not even in standby) the UPS will keep the DVR alive and HD spinning for almost 24 hours!

 

[OneMoar]

depends on if the batterys are flooded OR AGM, flooded can not provided a low sustained current and its orders of magnitude less efficient to run a inverter to go from DC>AC>DC
I bought several of these for my backup system
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008NKNHSG/?tag=tec06d-20
if you run flooded-sla battery's down below 12.5v you are damaging them

 

[Disparia]

Not the cheapest option, but convenience might make up for that: https://www.apc.com/products/family/?id=542

Don't have one myself, but had considered it when researching a new UPS a couple weeks ago. Modem/router are in one spot and my machine/home server in another. Would have worked well, though ultimately I just decided to move the modem and router and put that money towards a single larger unit (1500va/900w Cyberpower).

 

[Bill_Bright]

As noted here, "usually flooded batteries are not sealed." And typical home UPS use "sealed" lead-acid batteries because the typical home UPS is used indoors. Flooded batteries also require maintenance. Typical UPS batteries do not.

Flooded UPS batteries are typically used in big commercial/industrial facilities, not homes.

If you can show us a link to a UPS for a typical home computer, I would be interesting in reading about it.

http://electrical-engineering-porta...-power-supply-in-substations-and-power-plants

 

[OneMoar]

if by SLA you mean VLRA then yes you are right when you say SLA I assume you mean flooded

the three primary types of batteries used in UPS's are
1. AGM
2.VLRA
3.MBA
the real problem isn't the battery's is the inverter they are not designed to Handel sustained low draw they are very inefficient especially the larger ones

 

[FordGT90Concept]

These are what my CyberPowers use:
http://www.staples.com/Cyberpower-R...Cartridge-For-CP1350PFCLCD-UPS/product_893467

Doesn't say anything about the type but there are absolutely zero warnings anywhere about minimal draw. In fact, they're designed to run on battery with no connected devices (maybe a watt of draw on the batteries) for power-on-self-test.

If you're not looking at 2000+ VA, low draw isn't going to hurt it. Consumer UPS's rarely exceed 1500VA. We're not talking more than 120VA here. This discussion is irrelevant to the OP.

 

[Bill_Bright]

the real problem isn't the battery's is the inverter they are not designed to Handel sustained low draw they are very inefficient especially the larger ones

They may be much less efficient but they are still designed to handle it. While these devices are intended to provide 24/7 support, the designers and manufacturers don't assume a full or normal load 24/7/365.

And regardless, it is still a very low draw!

The runtime will be much higher with a the very low draw even if it is less efficient than it would be with a couple hundred watts pulling on it.

Powering a 10W load with a lousy 60% efficiency means the draw on the battery would be 16W.

Powering a 200W load, even at a remarkable 90% efficiency means the draw on the battery is 220W.

No matter how you look at it, the inefficient 16W load will allow for a much longer runtime than the efficient 200W load - not much shorter as initially suggested.

 

[revin]

My AT&T {Motarola Residential Gateway]Modem/Router came with Belkin 4hr Battery backup, because they have a 1500ft. of useless Fiber connection at a junction on my line........

 

[newtekie1]

My APC 1500VA unit ran a 15w CFL for 8 hours the last time I lost power, so I wouldn't worry about the inefficiency.

 

[mastrdrver]

My AT&T {Motarola Residential Gateway]Modem/Router came with Belkin 4hr Battery backup, because they have a 1500ft. of useless Fiber connection at a junction on my line........

Are you talking about one of these?

That fiber connection is probably the ring that runs around a large area. For example, in KC they have one large fiber ring that's bi-directional running around the entire KC area. The loop is several hundred mines long. From there it will connect to a larger one that runs around 5 or 6 states. It would be the equivalent of complaining about the power coming running high tension lines through your yard and asking why they can't just drop power to you down off those lines. This is all information provided from my dad who was an electrical engineer for ATT for 20 some years.

 

[revin]

That fiber connection is probably the ring

No it was a quick fix after the tornado to get "something special" going,for where a lot of apartment complex's were destroyed, and likely more to do with cell and banking at that time of install.

Even the senior AT&T fieldman said they did a lot of useless things in my area of town trying to push "UVERSE", when 90% of the town cant get more that 6Mb[ mine's actually running aprox 8-9] AT&T that is.
Just because of that little fibre, we now only have a phone for 4hrs. where as before even for 2week's the city was down we had phone service !!!

 

[RejZoR]

Be aware that powering your modem alone is not enough. Sure it may help, but you have to also be aware that infrastructure outside of your house matters as well. The link to your home needs to be powered as well and if they lose power as well for whatever reason. They shouldn't but shit happens when weather is bad.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Be aware that powering your modem alone is not enough. Sure it may help, but you have to also be aware that infrastructure outside of your house matters as well. The link to your home needs to be powered as well and if they lose power as well for whatever reason

That would be very uncommon as that power, whether DSL or cable, comes from the data center/central office. So if that is lost, that would mean they lost power from the grid and their own facility battery backup failed to kick in or ran out batteries AND their backup generators failed to kick in before their battery backup ran out of battery runtime. That would be very bad as that would affect their business customers too - including medical and financial facilities.

Or, some drunk took out the pole or j-box down on the corner.

 

[mastrdrver]

Yes the ATT system has it's own batter backups and generators. As long as the connection points are not destroyed they can run the network without power for a few weeks. Even longer for phone if the system is still on the old land line. I'm not sure about the central office, but I do know the switches have their own generators to run for a few weeks without needing power (they're about 5-6 story tall buildings in the ground that house all the equipment for internet/phone).

No it was a quick fix after the tornado to get "something special" going,for where a lot of apartment complex's were destroyed, and likely more to do with cell and banking at that time of install.

Even the senior AT&T fieldman said they did a lot of useless things in my area of town trying to push "UVERSE", when 90% of the town cant get more that 6Mb[ mine's actually running aprox 8-9] AT&T that is.
Just because of that little fibre, we now only have a phone for 4hrs. where as before even for 2week's the city was down we had phone service !!!

That would make sense. The new ATT (which was Southwestern Bell) bought out the old AT&T a few years ago. The old system ran on the old phone land line system from the sounds of it. My dad was saying that before the old AT&T was bought out, the plan was to make it so you had wifi access to your own wifi up to about a 30 mile radius. He has doubts that SWB really understands the system they bought up.

The reason for pushing UVerse was probably to justify the cost of putting more fiber in. Fiber costs, on average, ~$1 million per mile (copper then cost ~$100,000 per mile) in 2001 when my dad left. I'm sure the cost has only gone up since then. My dad said that they had figured out, before he left, that they had enough space in the units connecting the entire phone system, that if they were able to get rid of the land line stuff, then they'd be able to do that wifi thing without the need to install any new units. I assume that's why they changed the system if there was enough damage from a tornado to cause such a rebuild. The fieldman is looking at the system from what is and probably does not know where ATT is trying to take it. It may seem like it's useless at the time.

For what it's worth, UVerse ended up being ~15 years late thanks to the FCC. It was the reason I ended up moving out to Kansas instead of New Hampshire. The old AT&T was going to run fiber to every home for free in the late 80s/early 90s. The cable companies and broken up bell companies complained to the FCC. They insisted that it (UVerse) would put them out of business. The FCC judge restricted AT&T from doing what they were planning on doing go as far to even order AT&T to design a unit that allowed the cable companies to handle phone calls free of cost. I assume that the design is the basis on which all the cables companies systems work today. I'm sure it has changed a lot, but they got the initial design for free.

 

[revin]

Our compnay built 7ft. battery racks mainly for telcom backup,s and in this area it's the only feasable item since a lot is residential.

They insisted that it (UVerse) would put them out of business

Not around here LOL, the fiber issue is there's hardly ANY fully fibre in Joplin. They still have to use copper.
Now even since that copper issue is still the factor, we can get 6mb thru most of area, BUT again within a few miles of that main hub they got full fibre
and so now "some" can get UVerse "Broadband" with a 25mb connection.
Thing is they did run a few miles to a couple "high end" sub-division's, just so they can(*now) advertise "Broadband" .......b.s.
Oh yea, They even offer a 12 mb, yeah right. I've entered so many address's nada,

Back in the '90's we had to get 4 phone lines, 3 daughter's "needed" phone's, LOL, but also I had to have dialup and my main line

Then there was the Joplin.com wireless, BUT there again needed LOS, we used it at a whopping 1.5mb for a few years. [No problem with LOS now]

It was the woot to get a 1mb DSL connection, then 3mb but needed to be in 15,000 line ft of the main swb home that is in downtown.
Then they slowly added terminal buildings about the size of an outhouse to "expand" that 3mb. so around 98 we got 3mb out there.

That's what I don't understand is why the hell didn't they take advantage of using full fibre !!??!!!!!!!
If you had seen any pictures , the entire center of town was demolished, completly. But it was all old homes, avg FMV 25-50k.
Easlly could have buried new lines, and inwhich they did on some area's.

The only other offer is the cable, and sooooooo many houses are on a single line it's kinda moot to not just have a dedicated line.

Lastly a huge issue here, is as this copper-fiber-copper speed push's toward the "12mb", the latencey go's up horrable, and last year when we moved aprox 1 mi.
that tech even show'd me the differance from 3 to 6, ping was almost single digets[as my 3mb from <2 miles away, but 1 block from a switch house] at 6mb i'm avg 30's to 50's, jitter is just as erratic, but alot when rainy.

At any rate, it kinda sux only having 4 hr. phone/internet, but before only had phone so give and take................................but this 6mb @ 7-9 is ok !!

Are you talking about one of these?

Yes, it's the only power to the Moto..............
BTW if the battery unit has an Alarm, it'd be good to know about it ahead of time !! first time our's went off at nite, well.................

 

[mastrdrver]

Not around here LOL, the fiber issue is there's hardly ANY fully fibre in Joplin. They still have to use copper.
Now even since that copper issue is still the factor, we can get 6mb thru most of area, BUT again within a few miles of that main hub they got full fibre
and so now "some" can get UVerse "Broadband" with a 25mb connection.
Thing is they did run a few miles to a couple "high end" sub-division's, just so they can(*now) advertise "Broadband" .......b.s.
Oh yea, They even offer a 12 mb, yeah right. I've entered so many address's nada,

Back in the '90's we had to get 4 phone lines, 3 daughter's "needed" phone's, LOL, but also I had to have dialup and my main line

Then there was the Joplin.com wireless, BUT there again needed LOS, we used it at a whopping 1.5mb for a few years. [No problem with LOS now]

It was the woot to get a 1mb DSL connection, then 3mb but needed to be in 15,000 line ft of the main swb home that is in downtown.
Then they slowly added terminal buildings about the size of an outhouse to "expand" that 3mb. so around 98 we got 3mb out there.

That's what I don't understand is why the hell didn't they take advantage of using full fibre !!??!!!!!!!
If you had seen any pictures , the entire center of town was demolished, completly. But it was all old homes, avg FMV 25-50k.
Easlly could have buried new lines, and inwhich they did on some area's.

The only other offer is the cable, and sooooooo many houses are on a single line it's kinda moot to not just have a dedicated line.

Lastly a huge issue here, is as this copper-fiber-copper speed push's toward the "12mb", the latencey go's up horrable, and last year when we moved aprox 1 mi.
that tech even show'd me the differance from 3 to 6, ping was almost single digets[as my 3mb from <2 miles away, but 1 block from a switch house] at 6mb i'm avg 30's to 50's, jitter is just as erratic, but alot when rainy.

At any rate, it kinda sux only having 4 hr. phone/internet, but before only had phone so give and take................................but this 6mb @ 7-9 is ok !!

12MB is nothing today, you're correct. What I'm saying is that AT&T had a 15 year late start thanks to the FCC. 12MB would have been huge in the early to mid 90s. AT&T is just now working on getting 300MB available to more then just the Houston test area. Given a similar time table, if not delayed, they would have been doing this around 2000 instead of just starting in 2015.

You can thank the FCC for that first part. I don't understand why any one would be for the FCC when it almost always causes more problems and delays progress. UVerse is nothing now, but it would have been huge 25 years ago. Instead of telling the other companies to catch up to AT&T, the FCC decided to restrict progression and give in to the empty cries of the competition (at the time). Instead of the FCC tell them to catch up, they decided to listen to these cries of "we can't compete". Not to mention that the Ma Bell breakup was only about 10 years old.

UVerse is not bad for something that was designed in the 80s. Thanks for a 15 year late start, it's been playing catch up to cable. There would be fiber to every home and almost no copper if the FCC had not been in the way. That was the plan in ~1990 until the FCC thought allowing AT&T to give everyone fiber was a bad thing.

What you have now (or lack actually) in "Broadband" you can give a thanks to the FCC. This new "broadband" revision is more of the same crap from them. It does nothing toward fixing the problem (lack of competition), but is just a guise to make them look like the good guy and the broadband companies the bad guys (I'm not trying to say anything about the actual service from the companies, just a generalization). Instead they should get out of the way and force cities to stop giving "rights" to broadband companies so they're the only ones available in an area and thus eliminating competition. The problem is that there's too much money in it for the FCC from fines.

Yes, it's the only power to the Moto..............
BTW if the battery unit has an Alarm, it'd be good to know about it ahead of time !! first time our's went off at nite, well.................

lol

Yea i saw that, but no one mentioned that fact in any of the few reviews I read, thanks for the warning.

 

[JunkBear]

If you make some research on internet you can build one yourself using a car battery and a 12v-110v convesrter. You will need to make a "trigger" device to start it when wall outlet is cut but it will last wayyyy longer than a small ups unit and you can use the 110v converter for powering laptop, computer , cellphone charger. Just my humble opinion.

 

[revin]

@mastrdrver Just wanted to say Thank you for going OT with your post with me.
Very informative !!!

 

[mastrdrver]

Your welcome. If it had not been for your side comment I would not have gone on my tirade.

I still wish I could find some more information about the FCC ruling that tied up UVerse to begin with. I've spent a few days worth trying to find something but without any luck. My dad said that he was sure ATT would not be of any help if I tried emailing them about it.