[*] telco battery backup?

[Dan & Michele]

Greetings .. I know I've brought this up before, and I'm always looking 
for peoples insights into these things ... I've played around with voip 
before and have moved to a shaw voip service and am also toying with the 
idea of other local voip providers, so I'm checking things out a bit ... 
one thing that i'm curious about from the more informed in our group ... 
I believe there is a requirement for mts the ilec to provide battery 
backup to the phone system for "x" hours (I don't know what that 
limitation is or maybe it's even generator backed up too) ... is there 
any similar regulation/requirement for clecs?  or local voip providers?
The reason I ask is that I'm also curious as to how the crtc views clecs 
like shaw (that have a serious amount of infrastructure) and how they 
separate them from policies and procedures for other voip providers that 
do not have the same massive infrastructure/distribution system.

Case in point, I've moved to the southeast end of winnipeg a couple 
years ago from the northwest, garden city ... I cannot believe the 
amount of hydro disruptions i've had down here.  My power goes out, my 
internet is down and now my phone is down.  Hydro is pretty pathetic 
down here.   I asked shaw about this (as I have most of my 
communications with them) and they said that the phone distribution is 
backed up for about a max of an hour until the batteries die.  (This is 
separate from the battery backed up modem in the residence -- which 
appears to be functioning fine) ...
next response I get was saying that all digital phones are undergoing 
upgrades to support more backups to accommodate power outages and that 
it is a system-wide upgrade (whatever that means ...)
next response I get indicates that there is backup in the area and in 
most cases it will work, but "things can still go wrong.  Even with MTS 
this happens" ... interesting response ...

So, I have my rant ... so, I get the run around and whenever the power 
goes out my phone goes out ...  looks to me like they don't really have 
an answer or really know what's going on in this area .. or .. maybe 
they just don't want to say .. either way, I'm like PO'ed with their 
response.  If it's supposed to work, then fix it.. if it's not working, 
then let me know ...

I think it's time to check out the bad'ol mts to see what's different 
with them these days ...

In the end, if I still stick with a voip service then I'm pretty sure i 
won't have a redundancy there ... if I go with mts then i should have a 
much better chance of keeping the phone alive while the power is out ...

anyone have any interesting tid bits to fill the void in my voip? ;-)

Dan.