Power cut – Internet access?

MartinP

Hi I'm moving to Bangalore.

I'll be working from home as a writer and will have a generator or some kind of alternative power supply.

However, my girlfriend tells me that she loses Internet access sometimes during power cuts. Is there anything I can do to maintain an internet connection, as I rely on a lot of back and forth emails from my workplace back in the UK

Cheers

Martin

sillylilly

I would invest in an air-card (assuming you have a PCMCIA card slot in your laptop, otherwise you get USB aircards too) from either Airtel or Reliance (these are names of providers) which will give you some (if not very fast) connectivity that will help you be in touch with your office via eamil. These cards use SIMs and you will need to buy the aircard separately (about US $200) and pay SIM rental and download charges separately.

MartinP

Thanks,

So is this a wireless system? And from your answer can I imply that it is the case that Internet connections go down with the electricity, even if you have your own independent supply to get power in your house up and running again?

Cheers

Martin

Nick-H

Martin, it's great to know that you are moving to Bangalore! Do keep us informed.

There is no requirement of power to keep the broadband connection running, other than power supply to computer, modem, router and so on --- and if you do not have that, you cannot access anything!

It is more likely to be rain, than power cuts, that disrupts your internet.

We would have to know the exact circumstances in which your gf is loosing her connection to comment; simply loss of mains power, assuming she has sufficient UPS backup, will not cause it.

Even if you have a generator, you will need to have a UPS for your computing equipment, to regulate the power supply (highs and lows) and cover you for the majority of cuts that last only a few minutes. It also takes care of the time between the power cut and the generator starting/being started.

If you have a BSNL broadband connection, there is a free dial-up backup available. I never used it, as I no longer have a dial-up modem. These days I have Airtel broadband, which I find very reliable.

<crossposted>No, this is not right. To reiterate: broadband and telephone landline connection is not affected by power cut at your house.

The ADSL system is the same as in UK; have you ever noticed that, even in a power cut, your telephone will still work --- assuming, of course, that the receiver plugged into it does not need an external power supply

jituyadav

As Nick said, power cuts have nothing to do with loss of connectivity. As long as the router is connected to UPS, internet will be on. If the router is connected to mains and you have a generator instead of inverter, then probably you may lose connection for the time you are starting the genset, so it would not matter anyway.

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Aishah

Using my laptop if there is a power cut, I use my invertor power for the modem and battery for the laptop. This way, I keep going. It is not a good idea apparently to use the laptop with invertor power (something to do with square waves and potential damage to the computer). However, I have had no problems with using the invertor power for the modem. I have BSNL broadband connection plus the back up dial-up as well should broadband drop out.

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MartinP

Okay, thanks all for this – your comments are very much appreciated. I'll digest them and see if I'm up with the program!

Nick, nice to hear from you. I'll be in touch asap to update you on my news.

nycank

Not really true. Sometimes in India, the delivery of line-driver power for the last mile or outside junction-box before it heads to local CO(Central Office) goes kaput too. I had the same mistaken assumption, till Sherlock reminded me -- Devil, My dear Watson is in the detail.. If the ISP connection is via GSM/CDMA based cellular network, then one has to ensure the laptop/desktop is on UPS.

This is also true in many other countries where secondary ISPs deploy cheap aggregation switches or hubs in the basement of building complexes without insuring they are on UPSes. Storms and surges knock or reset the access gear from time to time.

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hitanshu

http://www.rcom.co.in/Communications..._tariff.ht ml for internet on the move!
http://www.airtel.in/wps/wcm/connect...band+Internet/ for broadband
http://www.su-kam.com/home-ups.html for backup.
and a good power stabilizer (critical) is all you need

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Nick-H

But so mostly true that I really wouldn't bother about it. I have never known the phone/broadband go down with the power, although I have had plenty failures for other reasons.

There are days... today we had no power from 10.00am to 5.00pm. Nothing, bar a generator, can get one through cuts like that. We went out!

Aishah

Quite right Nick - I've never had broadband fail because of a power cut.

I can recommend the Su-Kam invertor - mine is now 6 years old and still going strong - batteries (2 very large truck type) have had to be replaced about twice in this time, but it powers lights and fans for around 7 rooms in my house. (By speaking well of it just now, I hope I'm not putting a jinx on it!!) This is what powers the modem when the light cuts.

Nick-H

If there is a total area power blackout, including your exchange, then, sure, everything is going to be very dead.

That could be one of the disadvantages of living nextdoor to an exchange, for those that do, I suppose!

Power cuts are almost always fairly local; one street, or a small group of streets. Sometimes just a few houses or one side of a street --- of course, it all depends on the cause. It is not unknown for half a city to be plunged into darkness, but it is rare.

clivington

Don't forget about load shedding (aka rolling blackouts) due to insufficient generation or transmission capacity.

What about cable broadband? I see active boosters strung up in the birds nest of cables suppying houses in my area and guess that the connection would be lost when the power goes. But it's only a guess...

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Nick-H

Cable, I don't know... but I'd advise to avoid it anyway and stick to the telephone/ADSL providers like BSNL and Airtel.

Loadshedding: couldn't forget it even if I wanted to. We had two hours a day at one point. At least one can schedule for it.

MartinP

Hitanshiu -thanks for those links - I'll check em out.

A lot of this stuff is quite technical for me but I'll do the research and get on top of it

cheers