BT Prep Advanced Battery Backup for UK Phone and Broadband Users
Residential customers of BT’s (inc. EE) home broadband ISP and phone services may like to know that the UK telecoms provider is preparing to launch an “advanced” version of their existing Battery Backup Unit (BBU) “later this year“, which is said to be capable of “[lasting] for the full duration of most power outages.”
At present BT and EE already provide a free BBU to “vulnerable customers” who have their new Digital Voice service, so their Smart Hub (broadband router) can still receive power when there’s a power cut and this means they’re able to make an emergency call via either their Digital Voice phone or an existing corded handset. Regular customers can also get one of these, but it will cost you £85.
BT’s existing BBU is designed to exceed Ofcom’s current minimum requirement, which means that it can only provide power to the above kit for “at least an hour” if there’s a power cut. Suffice to say that longer outages, which are more likely to occur in rural areas, can be problematic.
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Despite the challenges, Ofcom are currently in the process of exploring (here and here) whether to require fixed broadband providers to ensure their active street cabinets can support a 4-hour power backup (many already can). In addition, they’re also exploring the potential for requiring at least 1 hour’s worth of battery backup at mobile sites (masts etc.), but this would be a massive technical and cost challenge; the regulator does not currently plan to mandate this.
However, such changes indirectly suggest that retail ISPs may in the future be expected to deliver a similarly capable BBU for homes, which is perhaps one of the reasons for BT’s change. The good news today is that a spokesperson for BT and EE has confirmed they’re preparing to launch an Advanced Battery Backup Unit (ABBU) “later this year“, which they claim will be able to “last for the full duration of most power outages“. The details are currently only wafer thin, but we’re trying to get more info.
In the meantime, it’s worth remembering that the practical and economic realities mean that no ISP can currently provide homes with enough battery backup to cover major, protracted outages, such as those that last beyond a few hours and impact a very wide area (days, weeks etc.). But if you have deeper pockets then there are plenty of third-party solutions (here) that can work longer, such as portable power stations (e.g. we recommend those with a LiFePO4 battery, like the VTOMAN Jump 600X or ALLPOWERS R600 – much larger units also exist).
However, there’s always the option of a full home system battery, such as one of those from GivEnergy or Tesla (Power Wall). Such systems often cost anything from c.£3k to £20k to install and can provide power for your whole home (charged cheap rate at night or free from solar). But just remember that you’ll need to have one installed with an EPS (Emergency Power Supply) in order to provide backup during a power outage, which may not cover all your circuits.
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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extended run batteries in the home are definitely useful
but my experience living in a village 5 miles from Norwich, just off the A11, is that my UPS can exceed the runtime of the exchange itself!
last year we had 2 outages in the village lasting over an hour, which exceeded the UPS runtime of the exchange itself (NO Generator!!!!)
this effected not just OR based services, but my estates OFNL service.
Interesting — most exchanges have good battery backup systems. Just to confirm, are you talking about an exchange-based product or something like FTTC which relies on powered street cabinets?
I’m not sure if OFNL is relevant — they almost certainly have active equipment between you and the Openreach exchange, if they even use the local exchange.
It was probably a repeater in a cabinet or underground that didn’t have enough battery capacity. They only have a couple of hours brand new, and most were get nicked eventually so they dropped the amount of batteries that they install.
Be very curious if exchanges had less than 4hrs or no generator, but then again most exchanges are very old sites with possible restrictions on generators and space (no new development to add a genny)
“most exchanges have good battery backup systems”
That’s a no from me. The weakest part of the network is the power supply. Has been for at least 20 years. Most battery rooms have long since been abandoned and generator runs are rare.
I have my kit on a UPS which sees me through short powercuts without issue (plenty of complaints about those on copper connections remaining without service for longer, particularly when a cab is on a different sub-station to them that remains off, for example). I’ve not had a cut of more than a few minutes to test how long this lasts in reality.
I’m on an OpenReach FTTP line, connected to a major exchange which obviously has some power backup. However, who knows how long that is. Is there any point in having a local UPS that would last 3 hours if the exchange only lasts 20 minutes. It’s impossible to find out until it happens – which is thankfully rare!
Depends on the site. I had an interview at a BT exchange in Birmingham for an apprenticeship (didn’t get it) – and they did a generator test as I was walking in. The pavement rumbled and the tell-tale sign of some large diesel generator kicking some smog out of the grates in the pavement. Was an interesting experience being able to wander round seeing their NOC etc.
(This was probably 15 years ago, sigh.)
I’d expect large/important POP exchanges to have diesel backup. Your local exchange would depend for sure, but I would suspect they all have one due to the requirements for phonelines to be able to make emergency calls at any time.
The move to Digital voice is why you now need end users to have a BBU, because for the same functionality you will need an active internet connection.
arguably the need for battery backup came when people started using cordless phones exclusively, and didn’t pay attention to advice to keep a cheap corded phone around for emergencies during a power cut.
of course it’s only with the rise of digital voice and fibre to the home that people are suddenly hot and bothered about losing the alleged reliability of a service that a) was never guaranteed, b) will fail as the equipment ages and c) they couldn’t take full advantage of anyway!
(and to be pedantic, businesses would have needed them for their PBXes, though some places did put hard wired analogue phones on the walls & presumably plumbed straight to a BT POTS line)
All the major exchanges will have generator backup available, however it is an optional item for CPs taking space in the exchange so even if it’s there that doesn’t guarantee that your ISP or their wholesaler is actually making use of it.
It used to be BT’s practices to have back up generators at all exchange but that ceased several decades ago. In general now they rely on getting a mobile generator in should an extended power fail occur
Betting all those with solar/battery setups are laughing their socks off right now!
“UPS, MINE last for a day!”
But I’m actually unsure as to when our last outage was, living in a town you don’t get many these days. Or until someone puts a digger through a cable!
Despite having solar and a 10kWh battery our house cannot run off it when there’s a power outage. There are a few additional (and expensive) things that need to be done to allow that and the people that installed our solar didn’t even offer it, citing that power outages aren’t regular enough to make the “prohibitive” expense worthwhile. To be fair we rarely get them (we aren’t rural). Still would have been nice to have been given the option though, I doubt I’m alone in assuming solar + battery would mean we wouldn’t be impacted by power outages. (just to add here that I didn’t organise or pay for our solar installation).
I’m not 100% sure exactly what we’re missing but part of it relates to the ability to export to the grid and earthing – I think our house would need its own earth rod and also a special type of inverter. And even then as the article says it is often the case that the battery would only cover a few essential circuit breakers and not the whole house.
Is a shame, it seems daft me researching a UPS for the ONT & router when we have a massive 10kWh battery sat there!
@G_Unit
I believe it’s because the solar inverters that change the DC battery into AC for your home rely on syncing to the 50Hz Supply. For safety, if the supply is lost they can’t detect whether that’s because they have been deliberately disconnected or because of a fault. If an engineer was working on your network, disconnect the main supply and then 10s of houses started pumping 230v back down the line, they’d fry!
The power backup modes need an automated switch to disconnect you from the network while they work in backup mode and reconnect when the power returns.
@Just a thought – ah that sounds about right!! Don’t want that to happen! Thanks
You need to have a switch that automaticlly isolates your supply from the mains connection before you can use a solar PV battery as an emergency power supply. Also your grid operator needs to inspect it before you’re allowed to use it. Any engineers working on a fault upstream of your connection wouldn’t take kindly to you supply mains voltage to it.
I’m considered vulnerable. But I’ve never been offered a battery backup, and was immediately switched to Digital Voice.
I like the FTTP service of BT. But there admin is inconsistent.
G-Unit is correct in saying that many battery/solar systems will not be allowed to operate if the grid fails. That was the case with our original Tesla battery/solar installation. However Tesla brought out a Gateway 2 (which is the controller which decides where the power is routed) which contains a 3 phase contactor. With the Gateway 2, the system will continue to run on the batteries/solar panels because it disconnects the grid connection. When the grid power returns it re-syncs the system and you get a glitch free re-connection. However, you still need a small UPS to cover the short outage that comes from the contactor disconnect time and you also need to provide a very good local earth, as you will be disconnecting both the live and the neutral during off grid operation. Normally the neutral is connected to earth at the meter using the armouring on the incoming supply. The neutral should also be connected to (a good) earth at the substation.
I have an AFERIY unit which works quite well. 512Wh of capacity and it can power my router, WiFi points, and a small server for 4 hours or so.
It’s important to verify that the unit has UPS / passthrough mode, otherwise constantly being connected to the mains will cause the batteries to die early.
I have my ONT plugged into a Cyberpower Powerwalker UPS. As well as my switch and (non-standard) router. It can run for about 4 hours on that. After that time, I could in theory run the ONT from a powerbank using a 12v PD trigger cable. Then I could run it all day long.
“At present BT and EE already provide a free BBU to “vulnerable customers””
This is not correct, we come under that category due to my parents living with us, we’re on the Priority Services Register etc but BT did not give us a free BBU. After a lot of back and forth, they eventually offered to refund us half of the cost of a UPS but they didn’t provide one for free and we had to purchase an off-the-shelf UPS ourselves.
If you have access to a mobile then you don’t qualify for a free bbu daft imo
That is one of the problems with all this tech, with the old home phones and phones in phone boxes, power went off, never mind you can still use the phone.
Do we maybe really too much on this tech? It don’t worry me, if power goes off I read a book, the only problem is if someone wants to gin touch and the power cut affects the mast.
Worth noting that the resilience of the old copper system wasn’t ever about generosity to customers or high standards of service, it was solely a side effect because the GPO also operated the government telephone network, and in addition to that had a system of line-preference to keep VIPs and the favoured on the general network connected in a national emergency. This was all in the context of the Cold War, three minute warnings, regular siren tests and the like.
And that’s why when FTTP and digital voice were being developed, government heard that the service would only be as reliable as the mains power supply, and thought “won’t affect us, because the government telephone network is history, and we’re taking backhanders from Russians anyway”.
When an old school friend of mine switched over she recognised this issue and asked for advice.
I recommended a cheap 12V UPS from AliExpress and so she’s using one of those. It’s just £25, so I don’t know where BT get off asking for £85!
Granted the CN version is probably not at BT’s standards, but come on, it’d cost a few quid more to be great, not 3x.
I’d imagine the BT version has more capacity and some reassurances it wont randomly burst into flames.
the BT device will have paperwork showing it actually conforms to the relevant safety standards and has probably had all sorts of testing to ensure that it won’t send too much voltage to the connected device(s). What can the AliExpress seller show for theirs?
The existing BT UPS is made by Cyberpower – and their generic version of it (https://www.cyberpowersystems.com/product/telecom/indoor/dtc50u12v/) has an MSRP of $99 / £76. Add on VAT and the BT version works out to be slightly cheaper.
I appreciate that this website’s commentariat loves to hate BT, but at least try to base it on the facts.
I have an alt-net coming into town, they have already at the backhaul point installed a slim cabinet, and next to it is a former for a full width (think dslam size) cabinet. I do not know if either of these cabinets require power, and what their functions are. The distance to the property to the cabinets is probably 1km, and the back-haul is approx 6km to the next town.
I am planning to use ppoe from my UPS to the OTN.
Any thoughts on the need for batteries in the cabinets, and my ppoe idea?
Roland (Rat) says “Try not to laugh, BT going back to the future . . . Yeahhhhhh”
The Openreach (White) ECI modem (Type 1b, dating from 2012) that I’m currently using has a socket on it marked BBU which is still as issued . . . taped-over !
By the time I get Digital Voice at my location, I’ll be making my way to the happy hunting ground in China . . . . using the shortest route . . . part of the reason I ditched the Smart Hub 2 for a third party router + ancient Openreach modem.
What ever the brand is, I hope it’s smaller than the current large black box that takes up most of my hall way
Given the move from less power fragile copper, and particulalry for emergency or life threatening events, change if its leadership and management are increasing the risk to life aren’t they delinquent and or negligent, and when there’s a first victim, shouldn’t there be a potential for culpable manslaughter ?8-O
Who (should have) scenrio tested the design (to at least maintain the reliability, if not improve it), planned and implemented the governance, testing and for complience with, and created the statutes if not Laws for the penaties for failures?
This should not be for individual or victims to enact it should be authorities fro a breaches in civil care, shouldn’t it? What are tele/coms from the governemtn down paid for, devolution, decreasing of standards practices, competence?
Compared to copper and its infra support that’s all external to the premises, seems to me that any premises provided with coms should have all this as a box external to the property including its power resilience for service continuance, rather than encroach in private dwellings.
Roll on PoF solution for all reted equipment to enable its emergency calling…