In the US, any incumbent phone carrier (ILEC), is required to have POTS lines on a power infrastructure capable of sustaining at least an 8 hour interruption in commercial power, whether it's in a remote or central office. Most companies use batteries at remotes (and put portable generators out when needed) and have permanent generators at central offices I know this is not the exact wording, but in the US at least, it's required by the FCC. I can't remember if competitive local exchange carriers (CLEC) have the same requirements. Your local carrier may or may not be in compliance with having (battery/generator) there to sustain 8 hours of operation, and I doubt they would tell you details of their power systems. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jay Ashworth" <jra@baylink.com> To: "Walter Keen" <walter.keen@rainierconnect.net>, "William Herrin" <bill@herrin.us> Cc: "NANOG" <nanog@nanog.org> Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 4:09:25 PM Subject: Re: OOB core router connectivity wish list The issue wasn't diversity, it was "is my POTS on Central Battery"; sorry for the comparative red herring. - jra Walter Keen <walter.keen@rainierconnect.net> wrote: I work for a rural Telecom in northwest US. Typically when I hear statements like that, it's that the tech built (strung aerially, trenched through ground, or through buried conduit) from a pedestal or other copper splice point to the customer premise. I would only expect this to go to the nearest remote terminal, or central office if there is no rem ote terminal. In a lot of (rural) cases, there is no direct copper between most houses and the central office, instead they have to (in most cases, depending on what copper cabling is available you are only able to reach one remote) cable you to the closest remote that has equipment, where you are aggregated and back-hauled (typically via fiber, but sometimes by T1) to the central office. If someone wanted completely physical diversity, up to the point of the CO, you would have to ask (likely a few times, and possibly being escalated to an engineering department of sorts) if your new POTS line can be homed to a different remote, or directly to the CO, ideally on a different physical cable route, assuming your goal is backhoe diversity. For a business line, they may be willing to work with you on diversity requirements. About the only way to guess if you're connected to a RSU or directly to the CO, you would have to know where the CO is, guess the approximate copper distance to it (which may involve guessing the approximate path the cable goes) and then hook up some equipment to your POTS line that measures and estimates the distance of that copper pair. Then you can guess where you might be connected to. ----- Original Message ----- From: "William Herrin" <bill@herrin.us> < b>To: "Jay Ashworth" <jra@baylink.com> Cc: "NANOG" <nanog@nanog.org> Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 2:30:48 PM Subject: Re: OOB core router connectivity wish list On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 4:43 PM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:
You are suggesting that it is *at all* difficult for a technically competent end-user to determine whether a given new POTS line will go to a CO or to an RSU?
Well, let me treat this as an opportunity to learn. How does one arrange for a POTS line ordered from the telco to travel its own dedicated copper pair all the way back to the central office building if the the tech tells you he only built it from one of the local holes in the ground? Regards, Bill Herrin -- Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.