So, a little history so you understand why the landline phones don't work during a power outage. After the Paint Fire in 1990, the phone lines had burned and needed to be reinstalled. With forward thinking, the phone company at the time decided to rewire everything with fiber optic instead of copper wire. Copper wire is what carries the small electrical charge to power the phone system. Without the copper wiring, we now have to rely on a battery pack in the junction box (ours is located at Manzanita and Lookout Rd.) The batteries are dead. After nearly 7 years of fighting with Verizon, and then Frontier, they replaced the batteries, which were promptly depleted and killed during the Whittier Fire in 2017. Several months ago, after a power outage, it took 12 hours after the power was restored for the batteries to be charged enough to run the system. As we are now nearing 24 hours since the last outage.... I'm thinking the batteries are once again, officially dead.
The new Frontier internet system is independent of the phone system, but does rely on Edison to power it, so when the power goes out, so does the internet. It is restored when the power comes back on, however.
Please know, when the power goes out, and the phones go with it, there are one or two people that dedicate an hour or more of their time reporting it and complaining. There needs to be more. Please join us in letting Frontier know that this is not acceptable.
Thanks for this info Jessica, I did wonder why we have no landline available during the outages, I even plugged an old rotary phone directly into the landline thinking I would get a dial tone with no such luck. I will also contact Frontier regarding our lack of a landline!
Thank you Jacque! I've even tried contacting the County, since they keep telling us to plug in old school landline phones during emergencies, and all will be good. Even though the power is back on, the power is going to the batteries, trying to recharge them. I think they are beyond that at this point.
When does our community get to complain to a higher power than Frontier.
Surely this can't continue legally?
Do you have any idea about any possible future resolution?
That would, probably be a conversation with the CPUC (California Public Untilites Commission). They have, historically, not been very responsive, as their representatives are usually former CEO's from the various utility companies. State representatives might be another way to go. I have heard that Monique Limon's office is very receptive.
Thank you Jessica, both for this reply and for Jacque's reply.
It helps to know that there is a path to follow.
This chain is very interesting. I sent Jenny an invitation to the PC community to see a demo of our new sprinkler system on December 1 @ noon in the Trout Club. Attached was a document with pictures and descriptions of the key components of our fire suppression system. One of my challenges was to figure out how to have internet without relying on Frontier, Verizon, Edison, etc. The answer was Impulse Internet (line of sight, radio controlled Internet) AND a generator to keep power at all times. Our Impulse Internet is backed up by a mobile broadband ATT Internet that kicks in if Impulse goes down (which it shouldn't).
I'm very excited about your demo - very intriguing!
Great meeting you, Gordon; looking forward to the demo.
Hi Gordon, I am interested in coming to your demo too.
I should add that Impulse line of sight Internet in the Trout Club goes directly to the Airport and Impulse's main receiver. This may not be the case for the PC??? Also, my comment is in regard to relying on the big corporate providers for Internet and NOT with regard to landlines. We abandoned ours for all of the reasons cited. If cell service goes out, I will pick up my Iridium Satellite phone and take a walk to a nearby good location to use it.
We're also have Impulse, but because of the topography here, it's not available to a lot of the interior of the community. I believe Rincon is another line of sight internet option.
Hey Gordon, we also use Impulse, we were the first customer on their new antenna a few years back. We had a few teething problems but seem to be OK now. They are a little pricey for the speed you get, but, they stay up when Edison goes away. We have Solar with Battery back up, so these outages don't really affect us.
Sounds like you got it “wired” Nic. Doesn’t surprise me!
I just heard from Frontier - they are on their way up to restore service. Which might be short lived if Edison shuts the power off, again.
Thank you MET for providing us with this highly visible and viable chain of conversation.
By the way, the phones are back up... in case you hadn't noticed yet. The fight continues.....
Jessica, do you have any idea how many households on the mountain have a Frontier landline?
That's a hard question to answer. I know a lot of folk have given up their land lines entirely, but I also know that there are many who only have a landline. And there are a lot that have both. Both seems like the way to go. I know that both systems crash - the landline seems to be more often than not, but more reliable (for me). I know that cell systems get overloaded with traffic or towers going down. It's still up in the air, which is more reliable.
As an FYI, on W. Camino Cielo our frontier landline has worked through the full power outage. The DSL however dies as soon as power goes out. It's supposed to have battery backup, but that doesn't work. Where do you complain about this stuff, I actually find the DSL more useful than the phone?
During the first outages (we've had at least 14 power outages this year due to the pole replacement crap!) I contacted frontier customer support and they dutifully created tickets which were then summarily closed. I once managed to get a bit more help and found out that the DSL back-end infrastructure that has dead batteries is managed by some remote (national?) team and that the local team that gets our tickets can't do anything about it.
I now have a cellular router so I can seamlessly switch from DSL to cellular. Costs ~$15/mo to keep a 1GB/mo SIM card going and then I add more data during the outage if we're about to run low.
Yep, on upper Kinevan/Stagecoach Frontier landline/rotary works during outages but DSL
crashes. Thanks TVE & Jessica for explanation of "why" of Frontier internet loss. Kinda figured it was a power/battery issue and agree to complain more. "Line of site" services will not work for me. ATT link to net has been OK for me, though I may have to wander outside a bit to get a 1-2 bar signal, usually G4 but LTE if I'm lucky. I have a basic data plan with them, so experienced a slowdown with net services because I was trying to access so much info.
Kudo's and many thanks to Mountain Ember Team during this last "event"!