Power backup system

摘要

An electrically powered node of a telecommunications system has a battery power backup associated with its power control unit. Under normal conditions it is maintained fully charged by means of trickle currents from the mains power feeds to each of a number of mains—connected customer equipments, by way of the “final drop” to the distribution point. These trickle currents are controlled by the respective power control units, to prevent overcharging. Using an electrical copper connection provided in parallel with the fibre connection, a battery backup can also be maintained in nodes further towards the exchange. The feeds are reversible, so that if a power outage removes the power supply from the customer premises, a “lifeline” plain telephone service between the exchange and the telephone handset is maintained using the local battery backup in the remote nodes. By limiting the service to simple telephony, the battery power can be sufficient to maintain the service for a reasonable duration. The power management systems can be used to transfer charge from one battery to another over the network according to the usage, or remaining life, of each battery.

主权项

1. A node configured for bi-directional electrical power feeding within a telecommunications network, comprising;
a power management system arranged to allow the node to receive electrical power from one or more customer network terminations connected thereto by electrical communications media, and also to deliver electrical power to one or more customer network terminations; and a communications connection control system for controlling the operation of services to the one or more customer network terminations such that only communications requiring a low bandwidth are connected to the customer network terminations if power is not being delivered to the node from the customer connections, and that communications requiring high bandwidth are only connected to the customer network terminations if power is being delivered to the node from the customer connections.