Telephone System Memory
(Small Important Batteries 101)
How to save money when your company loses power or gets hit by lightning!

In this tutorial we are going to address a small but very important component in almost every phone system, the small batteries (or capacitors) that enable your system to remember what was programmed into it when it was installed for you.

Typical Telephone Systems come with either a small lithium battery or what's called a "capacitor" (which is also a small type of battery) that are normally installed on or somewhere near the processor of your system. The general idea is that if you lose power, either for a short time or for an extended period of time,these little batteries are supposed to maintain the information that your installer programmed into your system when you had it installed and past that all the way up to today, and any programming changes that were made to your system along the way. That way, when your power returns, the information that was programmed into it returns as well.

The premise of using these little batteries is a good one, but there's a downfall, and that's what I'll tell you about now....

When your system is new, these batteries are new as well. They work great at that time, but like all batteries, after a certain time passes they will lose their strength and become weaker and weaker until they literally "don't have any juice left". When this happens it will mean an expensive service call for you, as well as at least some confusion and disruption of work in your company. Typically, these batteries will be OK for somewhere between 2-4 years after you installed your system. After 2 years, it's anybody's guess as to weather or not your system will remember where to send incoming calls after a power outage, brownout or lightning strike.

There are two ways to deal with the issue: 1. Investigate weather or not your system has a lithium battery that can be replaced, or if your system has a capacitor based system on the processor. If it's a battery, AND if it is one that isn't soldered in, get a new one every couple of years or so and have it plugged in. Have your installation company do this as your processor will probably have to be removed from service.If it is backed up by a capacitor, you really to back up you information. Line 2 shows you how!

2. (And this is the BEST way....) Have your installation company come out and make a copy of whats in your system, either on a floppydisk or on a piece of paper. Even if it's not perfectly accurate 6-7-8 months afterward, you will still have a good idea of where to start if you ever need to program your system again from scratch.

In the US, we are currently entering our thunderstorm seasons, and with them come a lot of phone systems that are going to get hit by lightning and brownouts, and as a result, they'll minimally become confused and at worst case they will be destroyed. If you have this information on a disk or on paper, your pain and suffering can be minimalized, even if you have to completely replace your system. (See:making sure your insurance covers lightning strike damage). It is a very time consuming process for an installer or for anyone who takes care of a phone system to recreate how a system was programmed by just asking the people in the company "how it worked before". Typically, it shouldn't take more than an hour or two for a vendor to come in and make a copy of your program, and if you maintain your own system it's free!

One of our next few tutorials will be on UPS's, (uninterruptible power supplies). We think you might find that one really useful! As a result of many requests from our customers, we will be offering CD's and Cassette tape courses of our video courses so that those of you who are interested can listen to them while on the way to and from work etc.

We are proud to announce that our seminars and courses are now being used by both Vocational schools and Technology Institutes in the US and Internationally. We are also in the process of adding a "Vendor Accreditation Program" to our list of services that we are providing to the public, free of charge. We will not be sponsoring nor recommending these vendors as being the best on the market or that they are the right ones to deal with, only that the ones accredited will have as their companies primary goal the ideal of good service and the belief in the idea that an educated customer is a better customer, period.

Browse our website for more details, and as always, if you have any questions about telephone or voicemail systems or something telecom related that you can't figure out, contact us via email or by giving us a call, and we'll do our level best to help out!

Chris Walsh,
tellearn.com
(800) 509-3666