SLC power failures
As power is being restored throughout the midwestern part of the US, one interesting feature showed up. A lot of telephone companies are using Subcriber Loop Carriers (SLCs) to provide service. Some phone companies are using local power sources with limited battery backup for some SLCs. With the extended power outages, central offices with generators maintained service; however, the remote equipment didn't have local generators. This resulted in people losing their local loops and telephone service as the power outages lasted for days. What does this have to with the Internet? Well, it started me thinking about Southwestern Bell Telephone's new Project Pronto, their plan to deploy DSL. As part of this, my understanding of the technology, is the increased equipment huts and remote locations without the same backups found in central offices.
Unnamed Administration sources reported that Sean Donelan said:
As power is being restored throughout the midwestern part of the US, one interesting feature showed up. A lot of telephone companies are using Subcriber Loop Carriers (SLCs) to provide service. Some phone companies are using local power sources with limited battery backup for some SLCs. With the extended power outages, central offices with generators maintained service; however, the remote equipment didn't have local generators. This resulted in people losing their local loops and telephone service as the power outages lasted for days.
Yep... The theory is, the RBOC has portable generators to deploy as needed. There's a male plug on each to receive same. That works fine for local failures (truck hits power line..). But in a widespread debacle, say Hurricane Andrew, earthquake, ice storm, etc... they have nowhere near enough, nor can they get them deployed fast enough if they did. ("re: Some" above; I've never seen a generator installation at a SLC...) -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
On Wed, 3 Jan 2001 22:52:21 -0500 (EST) David Lesher wrote:
Unnamed Administration sources reported that Sean Donelan said:
As power is being restored throughout the midwestern part of the US, one interesting feature showed up. A lot of telephone companies are using Subcriber Loop Carriers (SLCs) to provide service. Some phone companies are using local power sources with limited battery backup for some SLCs. With the extended power outages, central offices with generators maintained service; however, the remote equipment didn't have local generators. This resulted in people losing their local loops and telephone service as the power outages lasted for days.
Yep... The theory is, the RBOC has portable generators to deploy as needed. There's a male plug on each to receive same. That works fine for local failures (truck hits power line..). But in a widespread debacle, say Hurricane Andrew, earthquake, ice storm, etc... they have nowhere near enough, nor can they get them deployed fast enough if they did.
("re: Some" above; I've never seen a generator installation at a SLC...)
They were deployed in Maine after a large ice storm a few years back. I am not sure if they were deployed by BA, or just by the independent telephone companies. A major drawback was found; they were stolen with great frequency. After a major natural disaster, there is a a society-wide shortage of generators. Some scum just cut the securing chains, or shot out the locks, or ... regards, fletcher
Yep... The theory is, the RBOC has portable generators to deploy as needed. There's a male plug on each to receive same. That works fine for local failures (truck hits power line..). But in a widespread debacle, say Hurricane Andrew, earthquake, ice storm, etc... they have nowhere near enough, nor can they get them deployed fast enough if they did.
About three years ago, Omaha, NE, had a snow/ice storm resulting in multi-day power outages in some areas. One of my friends noticed the local cable company (Cox), which is also a CLEC offering service over their own plant (i.e. not renting loops from the RBOC) and has equipment in various remote cabinets with batteries and no generators, going from cabinet to cabinet running the generator long enough to charge the batteries (for some values of charge). They managed to keep his service up, although his area was only down for about 18 - 24 hours (I have no information good or bad anout other areas). Doing so is certainly labor intensive, and I don't know what cabinet-to-generator ratio is needed to make that work (how long to you have to charge the batteries to get an hour of runtime? -- I would think the batteries could take charge in at a rate higher than the rate normally used by the equipment in the cabinet ... but I don't know how much higher), but it did manage to keep service up in at least this one acecdotal case. -- Brett
Once upon a time, Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com> said:
As power is being restored throughout the midwestern part of the US, one interesting feature showed up. A lot of telephone companies are using Subcriber Loop Carriers (SLCs) to provide service. Some phone companies are using local power sources with limited battery backup for some SLCs. With the extended power outages, central offices with generators maintained service; however, the remote equipment didn't have local generators. This resulted in people losing their local loops and telephone service as the power outages lasted for days.
I've noticed that all the newer BellSouth SLCs in this area (Huntsville, AL) appear to have natural gas hookups. I have been wondering if this is for some kind of backup power. Anyone else seen this? -- Chris Adams <cmadams@hiwaay.net> Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.
participants (5)
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Brett Frankenberger -
Chris Adams -
David Lesher -
Fletcher E Kittredge -
Sean Donelan