Spring has sprung, birds are singing, and our FIOS box in the basement has decided to get into the act with one of its periodic beeping episodes. The FIOS beep can be distinguished from other beeps in your house--the coffee machine or the microwave declaring they are done, or the frig scolding you for keeping the door open too long--by its singular nature, which is to say it beeps just once, every fifteen minutes or so. It's a bit maddening if you don't know where the beep is coming from, and you have to wait fifteen more minutes before another beep will guide you closer to it. On the other hand, a solitary beep causes little notice and can easily be ignored for days.
You might think that the box, like the birds, is calling for a mate. It must get lonely down there in the basement, despite the countless gigabytes of television programming and internet data moving through the box every day.
In fact, a little attention is all it needs. The beep is the box's way of telling us that its backup battery has lost its charge. Fortunately, the battery only comes into play during power outages, so won't affect day to day operation. Since we've had this FIOS box for many years, Verizon would make us pay for a replacement. In our case, all that's needed to fix it is to pull out the wire connection (See photo) and push it back in again. Somehow (might it be the vibration caused when a particularly heavy truck passes by on the street out front?) the connection gets loose every few months. Caution, of course, and a deep respect for the mysteries of electricity, is highly recommended.
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