Hello!
I wanted to create this post to see if I can get an answer, as google seems to give mixed results. This winter, I was thinking of getting a small generator incase our power goes out. We live in a rural area, so I have propane for heat, but was more worried about keeping devices charged and some lights.
I was curious if we had a power outage, if I powered my modem- would I still be able to have internet access? We have Xfinity but I wasn’t sure if there is a total power outage, if the internet would go down either until the local system is brought back up or if it had batteries/self generators so the network stays up during an outage.
It really depends on the ISP and what their upstream setup is. You will need the generator to power your cable modem and router, although some ISPs include backup batteries in their cable modems (esp. if the modem is designed to also provide a phone line) if you bring your own modem it won’t have one, and your router will need power too.
Assuming your equipment stays powered on whether or not your internet will continue working is not very predictable. Recently a car hit a transformer and took out power a few blocks from our house but not our power, however my ISPs equipment was in the segment that lost power and we lost internet until that segment was repaired. It’s likely my ISP had no backup power for their field equipment when it lost power. This isn’t very surprising since most users won’t have backup power at home and won’t be able to use their home internet when power is out anyway.