"Some phone companies use an outside enclosure with batteries, hydrogen tanks and hydrogen fuel cells. The batteries are for the few minutes until the fuel cells get going. The ones I saw at a trade show could use a number of H2 tanks to provide the required run time."
And there are a lot of the older switches, and remote centrals, that even with power loss, will still switch but loose ring voltage, you still have service, with all the different phone companies out there, they all pretty much have good equipment, with the exception of some of the smaller private companies. For the newer switches, and fiber holes, they are pretty much using the fuel cells now.
Don,
Vonage, and the cable companies remind me of remote centrals they used back in the 50's and 60's when the production housing was in boom stage, we had 2500 homes served by a central remote with 12 lines, busy busy busy, and it looks like these so called bargin phone services are still trying to get away with a few lines as possible, in my area in the peak usage times, I get office busy when I try to call anyone with cable phone services, the outbound works, but not eniough lines for the inbound calls, and just about the same for a lot of cell providers.
[This message has been edited by LK (edited 02-17-2007).]
