How long do Openreach battery backup units run?

[jgwi...@gmail.com]

Can anyone tell me about Openreach battery backup units?

Where people are deemed deserving, do copper customers get the same unit as is apparently available for FTTP customers (as described at https://www.bt.com/help/landline/fibre-home-phone-service--questions-about-the-battery-back-up-un)? If not, can anyone point me to documentation about the copper equivalent?

For the FTTP unit, the text says "This means you will still be able to make and receive calls for up to an hour." If that wasn't deliberately designed to be ambiguous, then it is incompetent wording.

Can anyone help me find documentation that clarifies whether it means:

Option 1 - (as a BT rep tried to persuade me) that it will deliver an hour of talk time, which can be spread over a much longer period (he suggested 24 hours)

Option 2 - the unit will run for about an hour from the start of the power outage, whether you are making calls during that time or not.

[David Wade]

On 10/08/2023 14:20, jgwi...@gmail.com wrote:
> Can anyone tell me about Openreach battery backup units?
>
> Where people are deemed deserving, do copper customers get the same unit as is apparently available for FTTP customers (as described at https://www.bt.com/help/landline/fibre-home-phone-service--questions-about-the-battery-back-up-un)? If not, can anyone point me to documentation about the copper equivalent?
>

I don't believe BT is even deploying this these days except in
exceptional circumstances.

> For the FTTP unit, the text says "This means you will still be able to make and receive calls for up to an hour." If that wasn't deliberately designed to be ambiguous, then it is incompetent wording.
>
> Can anyone help me find documentation that clarifies whether it means:
>
> Option 1 - (as a BT rep tried to persuade me) that it will deliver an hour of talk time, which can be spread over a much longer period (he suggested 24 hours)
>

The batteries are 2000Mah so 2Ah. The Fibre Optic Terminator is rated at
0.5Amp The router at 0.75amps when on standby. I would say you will be
lucky to manage that...

> Option 2 - the unit will run for about an hour from the start of the power outage, whether you are making calls during that time or not.

I would say this is more like it.....

Dave

[Theo]

jgwi...@gmail.com <jgwi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Can anyone tell me about Openreach battery backup units?
>
> Where people are deemed deserving, do copper customers get the same unit
> as is apparently available for FTTP customers (as described at
> https://www.bt.com/help/landline/fibre-home-phone-service--questions-about-the-battery-back-up-un)?
> If not, can anyone point me to documentation about the copper equivalent?
>
> For the FTTP unit, the text says "This means you will still be able to
> make and receive calls for up to an hour." If that wasn't deliberately
> designed to be ambiguous, then it is incompetent wording.

That's the old BBU that used to be supplied to FTTP customers. It would
power the ONT only. There were 4x AA NiMH cells in there made by BYD, I
think they might have been 2000mAh. So total 9.6Wh, which would power a 10W
ONT for an hour.

They don't install those any more becaues they're largely useless. In
particular, while there was an original plan for phones to be plugged into
the ONT, the new plan is to plug them into the ISP's router, and there's no
BBU for that (for one thing, each router may be a different voltage/socket).

I'm not familiar with the new BBU units for copper customers, but hope they
have a bigger battery.

> Can anyone help me find documentation that clarifies whether it means:
>
> Option 1 - (as a BT rep tried to persuade me) that it will deliver an
> hour of talk time, which can be spread over a much longer period (he
> suggested 24 hours)
>
> Option 2 - the unit will run for about an hour from the start of the power
> outage, whether you are making calls during that time or not.

Option 2. You have to power the ONT to receive any calls, so the link has
to stay up. That takes power irrespective of whether there are any calls in
progress. Handling traffic for a call will take marginally more power, but
likely not very much.

(a figure of 5-10W is a guestimate for the power taken by each ONT or router
box. Most are in that ballpark.)

Theo

[Plusnet Support Team]

On 10/08/2023 16:30, Theo wrote:
> jgwi...@gmail.com <jgwi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Can anyone tell me about Openreach battery backup units?
>>
>> Where people are deemed deserving, do copper customers get the same unit
>> as is apparently available for FTTP customers (as described at
>> https://www.bt.com/help/landline/fibre-home-phone-service--questions-about-the-battery-back-up-un)?
>> If not, can anyone point me to documentation about the copper equivalent?
>>
>> For the FTTP unit, the text says "This means you will still be able to
>> make and receive calls for up to an hour." If that wasn't deliberately
>> designed to be ambiguous, then it is incompetent wording.
>
> That's the old BBU that used to be supplied to FTTP customers. It would
> power the ONT only. There were 4x AA NiMH cells in there made by BYD, I
> think they might have been 2000mAh. So total 9.6Wh, which would power a 10W
> ONT for an hour.
>
> They don't install those any more becaues they're largely useless. In
> particular, while there was an original plan for phones to be plugged into
> the ONT, the new plan is to plug them into the ISP's router, and there's no
> BBU for that (for one thing, each router may be a different voltage/socket).

FWIW, I have one of these ONT's with a BBU unit. It's been a while, but
the last time my power went out for an extended period of time, I don't
recall it lasting much beyond 30 minutes.

VoIP services will typically be registered via the ISP-supplied router
though, so it's that, the ONT and any additional equipment like ATA's or
DECT basestations that will all need redundant power.

> I'm not familiar with the new BBU units for copper customers, but hope they
> have a bigger battery.

BBU units for copper customers? I wasn't aware that Openreach were
considering supplying any. AFAIUI the onus is on the ISP to provide a
backup solution, and I think that's only mandated for vulnerable customers.

>> Can anyone help me find documentation that clarifies whether it means:
>>
>> Option 1 - (as a BT rep tried to persuade me) that it will deliver an
>> hour of talk time, which can be spread over a much longer period (he
>> suggested 24 hours)
>>
>> Option 2 - the unit will run for about an hour from the start of the power
>> outage, whether you are making calls during that time or not.
>
> Option 2. You have to power the ONT to receive any calls, so the link has
> to stay up. That takes power irrespective of whether there are any calls in
> progress. Handling traffic for a call will take marginally more power, but
> likely not very much.
>
> (a figure of 5-10W is a guestimate for the power taken by each ONT or router
> box. Most are in that ballpark.)

--
|Bob Pullen Award-winning broadband
|Support ADSL/VDSL/FTTP
|Plusnet Plc. www.plus.net
+--------------- twitter.com/plusnet ----------------

[codg...@gmail.com]

As the ONT uses such little power, why do fibre installers such as CF say that it must have its own
dedicated 13 amp socket? The adjoining ISP hub is supposed to have its own as well.

[Theo]

codg...@gmail.com wrote:
> As the ONT uses such little power, why do fibre installers such as CF say
> that it must have its own dedicated 13 amp socket? The adjoining ISP hub
> is supposed to have its own as well.

Because its power adapter comes with a mains plug. It has to be plugged in
somewhere to power it. It isn't taking 13 amps, that's just a description
of the kind of plug it has.

I think most installers will accept an extension lead, but that's not ideal
for something which is going to be there permanently, and they probably
don't want you switching it on and off frequently (it makes it look like
there's a network problem at their end). You can plug both ONT and router
into the extension or a double adapter if you only have one socket.

You can run your own DC barrel jack to it if you want, but that's not
something the ISP will get involved with (and you might have to pay for a
new one if you blow it up, since it's the network's property).

Theo

[Roderick Stewart]

On Tue, 15 Aug 2023 10:20:08 +0100, codg...@gmail.com wrote:

>As the ONT uses such little power, why do fibre installers such as CF say that it must have its own
>dedicated 13 amp socket? The adjoining ISP hub is supposed to have its own as well.

They probably just mean that it should have a dedicated socket so that
it will remain untouched. It's more to do with the nuisance value of
interrupting an internet feed that many other gadgets depend on than
with any risk of harm to the device itself. The same goes for anything
that needs to be constantly powered; you just designate its power
socket as out of bounds for anything else for the sake of convenience.

My ONT uses an adaptor to share a dedicated socket with my router,
because I don't want either of them to be interrupted.

Rod.

[jgwi...@gmail.com]

Despite the "guidance" from Ofcom that requires this, I am wondering if there is any telco that is routinely supplying one-hour backup solutions to digital-only customers with an inadequate mobile signal. Gigaclear, who are about to start selling FTTP in our poor-mobile-signal village, admit that they currently have no backup offering at all.

So we seem set to see a lot of people unprotected as the digital conversion proceeds. And even when/if telcos do provide one-hour backup, that one hour coverage isn't enough for many cases - no good if you have a heart attack two hours into an outage, and no good if you wake to no power after a cut in the night: how do you report the problem to your electricity provider if your one-hour battery ran down over the hour 0500 to 0600?

Does anyone make a power supply unit with a 13a plug, power conversion, a battery backup that would last several hours at the sort of current drain to run these units, and a 5v 2.1mm plug for the output? (Or even better, two such outputs so that one 13a socket could power both ONT and router)?

General purpose BBUs can be quite bulky, but also it seems crazy to use an inverter to go from 12v DC to 230v AC only to add a power adapter to take it down to 5v DC again. And most units have IEC13 sockets rather than 13A which means that they aren't a simple plug-in option even if the customer didn't baulk at the high price to protect their voice calls during a power outage.

What unit would anyone suggest as the current least-worst option for the digital-only customer without an adequate indoor mobile signal on any network, if they wanted to be sure of making a 999 call during a mains outage?

[Andy Burns]

jgwinster wrote:

> Does anyone make a power supply unit with a 13a plug, power conversion,
> a battery backup that would last several hours a

Cyberpower seem to make some 12V UPSes, e.g model DTC36U12V about £70

From the manual looks like it just has screw terminal for the output so
you'd need to make a pigtail to barrel plug, it can provide 36W so
should manage a router as well as an ONT, 86Wh capacity so 2-3 hours I'd
expect ...

[Roderick Stewart]

On Wed, 16 Aug 2023 03:18:31 -0700 (PDT), "jgwi...@gmail.com"
<jgwi...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Does anyone make a power supply unit with a 13a plug, power conversion, a battery backup that would last several hours at the sort of current drain to run these units, and a 5v 2.1mm plug for the output? (Or even better, two such outputs so that one 13a socket could power both ONT and router)?

Just do a search on Amazon for '12V UPS' and you'll see a selection of
devices that seem to be capable of doing exactly what you describe.

If you also want to power a computer during a power cut, rather than
just phones, there are more hefty devices with mains output. Just buy
what you need and plug it in.

I haven't bothered with anything like this because power cuts have not
been a problem where I've lived for the last 30 years, but it would be
simple enough to add one if necessary.

Rod.

[Mark Carver]

On 16/08/2023 11:18, jgwi...@gmail.com wrote:
> Does anyone make a power supply unit with a 13a plug, power conversion, a battery backup that would last several hours at the sort of current drain to run these units, and a 5v 2.1mm plug for the output?

You mean like this ?

<https://www.broadbandbuyer.com/products/44819-eaton-3sm36b/?gclid=CjwKCAjw5_GmBhBIEiwA5QSMxINMOytk5jkCk6oqoQLFG1NUm2_ablOZuWSrS_kmt6oZt-EDx_EjbhoCpS4QAvD_BwE>

[Theo]

Beware that that has about 16Wh of capacity - you might scrape a couple of
hours out of it powering a router, but not massively more. For comparison
that is about the same as the average mobile phone.

A lot of these cheap out on the batteries - that one doesn't have more than a
fiver's worth of cells, and once they've built the whole thing you might as
well spend a bit more to get a longer runtime.

Theo

[jgwi...@gmail.com]

For non-FTTP, I've seen suggestions of BT Hub2 using 10.8W, which would seem to give a theoretical 8 hours from 86Wh. Yet EE say of their 7.2ah 12v unit (https://tinyurl.com/4mfdk886):

"This unit provides a minimum of one hour power back-up when used with your BT Digital Voice home phone"

That is a very big difference - surely even if they want to be sure of their claim, even after the battery has lost some of its capacity, they could be offering much more than one hour minimum.

Is it a simple error? Or have I misunderstood something?

[Theo]

Maybe they're not taking the lead acid down to zero, as that might damage
it?

Also I'd guess they're budgeting for the most power hungry wired phone -
what current are you allowed to draw from a BT socket?

Theo

[Mark Carver]

Not much, it's all down to Mr Ohm, despite what BT might say !

[Abandoned_Trolley]

On 16/08/2023 17:13, Theo wrote:

A few milliamps at most. Back in the dark ages of Strowger exchanges
there was a line relay in series with one leg of the pair.

As soon as you picked up the receiver you would "loop the line" and the
relay would start the process to get you a dial tone. Something similar
happened in crossbar exchanges too.

The early Trimphones had a small NiCaD cell in them which was trickle
charged from the line, but obviously a small enough current to avoid
activating the relay

--
random signature text inserted here