Use a UPS to Keep Your Internet Running in a Brownout

Modern life in one’s home relies on one device above all else: your modem. So much of our lives revolves around connectivity—your TV streaming, your work Zooms, your email, your phone, and all the devices in your household that run on wifi. And that little box relies on electricity, which—due to being overtaxed from global warming—is becoming more unstable, all the time. Connecting your modem and router to a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) can ameliorate an awful lot of those outages.

Why your modem goes “down”

While real outages demand patience while the power company brings junction boxes and power lines back online, you might experience small periods of instability throughout the year, where your electrical will momentarily go on and offline, or will only go offline for a minute or two.

The problem is, every single time the power goes off, your modem reboots. Despite all the modern advancement in home modems, a rebooting modem is still a painful 10 minutes. One time is fine—heck, your modem benefits from an occasional reboot. It forces the software to check for updates, or can refresh the signal so recent updates to speeds take hold. But if your power is going on and off—even just a blip—each time your modem reboots and sets off the entire chain of devices notifying you they’re offline, and later, online again.

A UPS ensures a stable signal

Most consumers don’t have UPS units in their home, which is a mistake. Particularly in older houses, inconsistent power coming into the home, and then into your appliances and computers, can cause additional wear and tear on your equipment. In fact, that was what caused me to get a UPS about 15 years ago—I was going through hard drives at an absurd rate, and it turned out I was toasting them with inconsistent power surging. A UPS ensures that you have a consistent power supply, and alerts you when you don’t.

A UPS is really nothing more than a large power bank plus a surge protector, plugged into the wall, but with a series of batteries. When power stops coming in from the outlet, it kicks immediately to the batteries, and those will keep any device plugged into the UPS powered for a short period of time. It depends on the UPS, but a few minutes is always a safe bet, and often, much longer.

That bridge of power means your modem won’t reset from a power blip or even a short outage of a minute or two. Remember, the power being down doesn’t necessarily mean the cable is also down. Even if the outage becomes extended, this gives you time to shut things down properly.

How to choose a UPS

You’ll be primarily looking at how many watts your UPS outputs and making sure it’s enough to cover the devices you want to plug into it. If you’ve gone through this with power banks, you understand that all appliances draw different amounts of power, and the power source must have at least as many watts as the device drawing on it. This is why you can’t plug your Instant pot into your car’s cigarette power (it’s not important why I know this).

Battery size is the second component—the bigger the battery, the more it can power, for longer.

Finally, the number of outlets is important. On most models, only some of the outlets on the power strip have backup power, so you’ll want to ensure you have enough for the devices you want to plug in.

While size is certainly a factor, your options are largely determined by the three factors above.

How to install a UPS

The downside of the UPS is that they’re basically beefy towers. They’ve gotten smaller over the years, and less expensive, but they’re still just big bricks you need to hide someplace. Luckily, most people install modems in their living room or office, near the TV or home computer. In both cases, a UPS is easy to tuck into your other equipment.

All that’s required is to put your batteries in, if it takes them (some UPS have rechargeable battery units) and plug the UPS into a three-pronged outlet. Then you begin plugging in the equipment you want to ensure consistency on—your modem, your router, your TV, etc.

When the power goes down

Your UPS will generally sound an alarm when it’s gone to battery power. At that point, you need to see if the power outage is a blip, or if it’s going to remain off. Remember, you’re draining batteries at this point, so you have to choose whether you’re going to drain them by keeping everything on or power down and save your battery. If you have a rechargeable battery, this isn’t such a big deal, but if you need to plonk in eight more DD batteries in tomorrow, it’s something to think about.

While your modem will be attached, you need to be aware that your router might not be. If your modem is a modem/router combo, you’re set. If you maintain one router that sits next to your modem, it can also be plugged into the UPS. However, if you’ve moved to mesh routers, where you have multiple routers throughout the house, or you have repeaters, remember that only the equipment plugged into the UPS will remain up.

The difference between a UPS and a power bank

Power banks like Jackery and EcoFlow have become popular, with good reason. Like a UPS, they can offer power during an outage, and when power is on, they’re a rechargeable power bank. They come in varying sizes, so they can power anything from a laptop to a refrigerator. Technically, you could tuck a small one into the same place as the UPS would go, connect it to a power outlet and when the power went off, it would switch to battery backup.

But a power bank isn’t the same integrity of power surge protector, and power banks are awfully expensive to keep landlocked to your modem. In a real outage, you’d want it free to use for other items.

With UPS units starting at $50, it seems wiser to invest in one, and keep it tethered to your modem and router.