Once upon a time, Frank Bulk <frnkblk@iname.com> said:
A good portable generator is more than $500, and if it's a wide-spread outage there's not enough portable generators to go around, and if there were, not enough people to set them and give them their fluids. And it doesn't pay to put a natural gas (or similar) generator at every node for those rare instances where the battery does not suffice.
That's what Bellsouth did here (haven't seen any new fiber huts in my area since AT&T took over to know if they're still doing it). Every fiber hut is on a larger concrete pad that has a second power hut with a natural gas line hooked up. Of course, last year when we had a week-long power outage due to tornados taking out over 200 high-voltage distribution towers, my DSL and phone went down after a while anyway, because mine runs to a fiber hut old enough to be an actual hut (looks like a little pump house) from before they set them up with the generators. I'm not sure how long it was up because _I_ didn't have a generator (and then I left town). As for portable generators: I'm in Huntsville, AL, which is not exactly a huge city, and I'm pretty sure there are well over a hundred fiber huts around here. Storing, maintaining, deploying, and supplying that many portable generators is not practical, especially when they'll be needed at a time when you probably need all hands in the field repairing the plant itself. Besides, where do you think you're going to get gasoline in a wide-spread extended power failure? Few gas stations have generators, and even if they do, they'll sell out of gas quickly. That distribution system also needs power. The diesel for our generator had to be trucked in from outside the affected area (Birmingham IIRC). -- Chris Adams <cmadams@hiwaay.net> Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.