Verizon FiOS battery failures surprising Pennsylvania Customers [telecom]

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- Bill Horne
  
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posted
10 years ago

Mon, May 13, 2013 2:39 AM

Verizon Fios Battery Failures Surprising North Hills Customers

Customers are responsible for the cost of new, back-up batteries

By Larissa Dudkiewicz

Verizon's motto says they "can save you a bundle." But more and more customers with Verizon FIOS service say they are experiencing trouble with the batteries in their control boxes, and having to buy replacements, according to KDKA-TV.

Verizon customer Bob Gaertner of Ross Township told KDKA he noticed the replace battery light on his FIOS control box [flashing], which meant his backup battery was dead.

Lee Gierczynski of Verizon says the backup battery is crucial because it provides up to 8-hours of backup power to voice service in case there is a commercial power outage, KDKA reports.

But when Gaertner called Verizon to get a replacement battery, KDKA says he was told his warranty was just for one year and that he was solely responsible for the battery.

Verizon FIOS is available to about 450,000 households in western Pennsylvania.

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- HAncock4
  
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posted
10 years ago

Fri, May 17, 2013 1:02 AM

For what it's woth, in my own experience electronic device battery status indicators can be rather inaccurate both ways. One of my devices says the batteries are low when they still have plenty of power; another device fails to warn in time of low battery. I wonder if some of the "dead batteries" mentioned in the article were in fact actually dead.

I've heard from some FIOS users that actual backup time is more like

3-4 hours. Anyone else have experience with backup time?

The article suggested the batteries were failing about after a year. For a battery like this, I'm surprised it doesn't last longer (I am not an engineer).. Automobile batteries, which have more of a charge/ discharge cycle, can last five years or more. A FIOS battery probably stays on 'trickle' charge almost the entire time and isn't bounced around like a car battery. (Of course, Verizon may be equipping its boxes with very cheap batteries that don't last very long.)

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- Doug McIntyre
  
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posted
10 years ago

Fri, May 17, 2013 4:46 AM

lead-acid cell battery like found in your stock UPS (the model they were replacing was even from APC, a well known UPS vendor).

You can find these sorts of batteries at any place that sells car/motorcycle/lawn mower lead-acid type batteries.

I've found that over the years of maintaining many UPS units, that the cheaper consumer level (ie. APC) batteries tend to last only 2-3 years instead of 5-6 years that a car battery does.