Do you need Battery Backup or UPS for your phone system?
Simple answer is NO, if you don’t need to take or make calls when power is lost that is. Seriously how much is a battery back-up worth and is it an added cost or recoverable costs?
What is a UPS? An Uninterruptible Power Supply is a fancy battery backup for a phone system, PC or almost anything that needs power. It simply connects to the power and runs off the built in batteries when power is lost. How long a UPS will run for depends on how much power you suck out of it as the batteries don’t run forever.
Cost: A battery backup or UPS will cost from $99 and the average costs is $300 and up to thousands for serious backup of many, many systems, lights, etc.
So the question was do I need one? I think businesses cannot afford to stop making or taking calls or be without internet when the power goes down, so when it does the average upfront cost of $300 is nothing when compared to loss of productivity, service and sales. Most any system like an LG or Hybrex support battery backup and UPS connections.
How does it help? You connect your phone system PABX and or internet modem to it and whilst power is down your systems will runs normally for as long as the battery lasts, which should be at least 30 minutes in my view. I have a small UPS that runs our phones, our internet, our access controls for hours and a separate one on our business server. When we have lost power we are also without PC’s but fortunately for us we have a few laptops in the business that still run for a few hours and with the phone also running off the UPS and the internet, it is business as usual for us on the 2-4 times per year we may have troubles.
Cheap insurance I think, and many models at affordable prices exists so plan for the worst and hope for the best.
happy hunting, sourcing, installing or repairing.
