Should telecom optical modems be restarted regularly? Every night, I cut out the power for two years and saved seventeen yuan. My mom's cat's light degradation doubled

last autumn, when I went back to my mom's house, I found a smart socket by her bedside. It automatically cuts off at 11 p.m. and reconnects at 6 a.m. When I asked her what she used it for, she said an old friend downstairs said, "Appliances steal power when standby, and the optical modem's red light flashes on and off, and who knows how much it consumes all night." I did the math and showed her the math: the fiber modem has 6 watts of standby, cutting off for 7 hours a night, saving 15 kWh of electricity per year, which is over 8 yuan. Over two years, she saved seventeen yuan. What is the price

? When I was installing her optical modem, I copied the baseline data: received optical power was -21.2dBm. Not long ago, when I checked the backend, it was -26.4. It has risen by more than five dB in two years, directly hitting the health red line of -27. My unit only increased by two or three dB during the same period, and in the middle it even went up to -23.5 because the cable ties on the weak current box were too tight. After straightening up, it came back. When the light deterioration drops below -27, what awaits her are disconnections and repairs. By then, a technician visiting in one visit could cut off power for thirty years.

of course, you can't blame the power outage alone—later, the technician investigated and found that the main cause was the weak current box lid had bent the tail fibers in a dead bend. But the nightly electric shock was a real hidden injury to the laser inside the optical modem. The root of this issue lies in the fact that optical modem and router are two completely opposite device . There are tons of tutorials online teaching routers to restart regularly, and copying them directly onto optical modems is basically paying for a health issue.

clarify first: why shouldn't you apply the router restart maintenance to the optical modem

there is a reason for regularly restarting the router. The connection meters running in the memory keep piling up, the devices hang up more and more, and after running the firmware for hundreds of hours, it starts to get dizzy. Restarting once is like wiping the cutting board clean. My AX3000T automatically restarts every Wednesday at 4 a.m., a timed task set by , and it easily runs two young people.

Guangmao is in a completely different situation. It has an optical fiber on its head, which does photoelectric conversion. The core is a laser that continuously emits light toward the equipment room. When the router loses power, it clears temporary data stored in memory; When the optical modem loses power, it affects the optical path and registration status. The things to do after power outages on both sides are simply not on the same scale.

In short: routers are home appliances, and optical modems are more like precision instruments. Turn off appliances casually, and even engineers can't be bothered to touch the power buttons on precision instruments.

First layer of accounts: Every time the power goes out, the optical modem must 'check in' again

Once powered on, it's not just plugged in and ready to use. It first lights up to notify the data center, which recognizes it in the user list, checks the SN or LOID as a "code," then issues the configuration, and only when the PON light stays on is it considered operational. I previously broke down this process in the of the PON light registration post . Normally, one trip takes one to three minutes, but when the data center is busy, it starts in ten minutes.

my mom's nightly blackout tactic forces the optical modem to re-enter every morning. She didn't understand this, only thinking, "When I first got up in the morning, my video call was always going in circles, but after a while, it would be fine on its own." She thought my help in restarting the router didn't work, but in fact, during those few minutes, the optical modem was waiting in line at the computer room entrance to check in.

even more troublesome was that during the few minutes of registration, all the devices at home were completely offline. The router is anxious, the phone's WiFi is full and can't open web pages, and smart home devices pop up offline notifications one by one. My mom has four cameras at home, and every morning at 6 a.m., she sends her four messages saying 'Device is offline.' She once thought the cameras at home were broken and almost asked me to replace them.

Second layer: Lasers are vulnerable to electric shocks, so they accumulate hidden damage once a night

This layer is the easiest to overlook. Huawei's enterprise technical documentation clearly states that the two main causes of optical module failure are static damage and optical port contamination, and frequent power switching accelerates laser performance degradation. The laser is the heart of the optical modem; every electric shock at the moment of power is recorded for it. Why is light deterioration rising year by year? The weakening of laser emission power is an internal cause, while bending of the tail fiber and dirty joints are external factors—both have risen together.

the few dB issues that my mom's unit saw a lot of light decline and price increases, the technician eventually found it was mainly due to the lid pressing the wire. That's an external factor, I agree. But for machines in the same batch and community, my unit wasn't cut off every day, so the light degradation curve was much smoother. The eight yuan for saving electricity combined with the risk of replacing the laser makes this a worthwhile deal. You can check whether the light decay has risen. Just go to the backend of 192.168.2.1 on your phone and check the received optical power reading. -8 to -27 are considered healthy. I'll write the specific reading in the of the light decay article. On the day of installation, remember to check the base numbers. From now on, check once a year; if the increase exceeds five dB, you should pay attention.

By the way, I've accompanied a few people on the initial installation count process. Copying them down on the spot can save you countless later tasks. The specific items you copy are check the for the installation and acceptance checklist.

Third layer of accounts: It's not just the internet that's lost—landlines and IPTV are also affected

Many households have other things hanging under their optical modems. My family has IPTV, and my mom's home has a landline. The landline is the most typical example: nowadays, landlines are no longer just phone lines; the phone plugs into the TEL port of the optical modem, using network voice control. Once the optical modem loses power, the phone becomes a plastic board. For urgent matters, you can't get in or out. This is something repeatedly reminded in the I wrote about at the telephone. For families with elderly people, this pitfall is much worse than saving 8 yuan on electricity.

IPTV similarly, the signal source for the set-top box is the VLAN on the optical modem. If the modem blacks out when powered off, restarting the set-top box itself won't help. There's also an even more subtle factor: ITMS likes to push configurations and firmware down from 2 to 5 a.m. You deliberately chose to cut off power at 11 PM and power on at 6 AM. Although the timing is staggered, if one day the area launches the configuration and the optical modem happens to be off, you can re-register the next day and re-roll the configuration. The WiFi name you previously changed might be overwritten by the standard template. I wrote about ITMS in the where the configuration was changed back, especially for families who have switched to bridging and are afraid of it being active at night.

when should you restart? What is the gentlest way to restart

That said, the optical modem isn't always unusable. There are four situations where you should restart when necessary:

overdue bills. Many people have stumbled because they paid the internet but didn't get it back, thinking they'd have to wait. Actually, the dial-up session on the optical modem is stuck in a rejected state and won't heal itself. Just restart and you'll be fine. I've written this in The ending of the about the overdue internet outage.

the posture, prioritize a soft restart. On your phone or computer, go to 192.168.2.1 and use the regular username useradmin. In the 'System' or 'Manage' menu, find 'Restart Device' and tap it. Soft restart avoids the physical power outage and current shocks, saving the optical module one more time and preventing the loss of the configuration. If you really need to cut off power, unplug the socket and wait 30 seconds. Let the capacitors inside discharge before plugging them back in. Don't unplug and plug them in quickly. After powering on, don't rush to sent. Give it one to three minutes to register, then make sure the PON light stays on before checking for other details. If Deng Yu doesn't understand, LOS the red light comparison chart.

wrapping up: leave the smart socket for the router, and don't set a timer for the optical modem's socket

My mom's final modification was simple: she didn't throw away the smart socket, moved it from the optical modem to the router, and set it to restart every Wednesday at midnight—both ends are comfortable. Plug the optical modem back into a regular socket, and from then on, power is always on. Two months later, I checked her home's light decline again. The figure stayed steady at -26.4 and didn't go up further. The technician finished the process and returned to around -24, and only then did the matter settle. A mess inside a weak current box will worsen optical path problems. Storage is important. I wrote in my about organizing weak current boxes in that the coil of fiber is bigger than a fist.

there are only two situations where you really need to cut off the mode's power. One is during thunderstorms, where induced lightning enters along the circuit, and a whole set of equipment burns continuously. In this kind of weather, it should be removed. The charge for lightning protection was calculated in the about lightning damage in . The other is for long trips for half a month or a month. After unplugging accident protection, you can plug it back in and wait a few minutes to register. Besides that, you really don't need to worry about the electricity cost of the optical modem. It's 29 yuan a year. I tested it in the of the using a metering socket to measure electricity bills, and this device is one of the most energy-efficient among FamilyMart's network devices.

to wrap things up in order: First, check your habits—check if you have a timed outlet to hang on the fiber modem, and if there is, unplug it; Then check the numbers, log in to the backend and record the light deterioration data on your phone; On the router side, reboot is timed as usual, don't get itchy to extend to the optical modem; If you really encounter a freeze, prioritize soft reboot and follow in the last place after power outages. For the light modem, the best maintenance is to ignore it.