Incidentally that is one 'risk' with iPlayer as it is actually a peer-to-peer network so I always make sure I exit it after I have finished my downloads. Don't want anyone leaching my upload bandwidth just so long as I have finished borrowing theirs

Thought so. We have a bog-standard phone stuffed in a drawer. I'd understood it to be there in case of a power cut.

You may well be correct (your turn now ) but all my 'normal' phones are wireless and so with the power to the base stations gone they wouldn't work even if there was a signal on the line.

Just checked the Shaw "About Digital Phone" page and it says 4 hour battery back-up.

See my edited reply in post #30.

Yes I was aware of the fact that none of my phones would work without power so I really should get a wired backup just in case we get anymore snow here next year .

We bought ours after the blackout of '03. Man, did I get pissed that night.

A lot of internet service providers seem to be rolling out their own digitial phone services these days, they're pretty much a step up from voip, in that the modems (EMTAs) have the battery backup and don't use the internet (the digital part is only between your modem and the service provider where it's then converted to regular telephony). They still rely on the internet connection working though (and the battery..only 4 hours??!)

Apparently some internet service providers (who don't yet run digital phone services) are giving customers EMTAs as a matter of course now, instead of the regular cable modems. I suppose this signifies that the ISPs generally want to compete for the home telephone service market now, so there's probably some debate regarding whether regular/analogue phone services will be available or supported in the years to come.

yeah, we have one of those too - ours is no longer stuffed in a drawer, but hangs on the wall just inside the basement door, along with a flashlight.

Our Cogeco cable/ISP/phone service runs VoIP, and comes with a battery back-up to power the phone circuit. Its stated standby life in the event of power failure is minumum 8 hours; I know it lasts at least 4 (it took that long to realise that daughter had pulled the plug out...)

I think this is a bit of a red herring. I was quite interested in this story, since we have VoIP as our primary phone service at home. It turns out the reason the emergency services didn't go to the correct address is because the family concerned had moved (from Mississauga to Calgary, if memory serves) some two years previously, but had not updated the service provider with their address details - the bills were being paid by relatives still living at the old address. Add to that that they hung up the 911 call before confirming their address, and it turned into a sad but largely avoidable tragedy.