RE: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband
The dropping of internet is done on purpose to preserve the battery for the pots when ac power is lost. This is an actual setting in just about all manufacturers of ftth equipment. You'll probably have a hard time to get them to change the profile on the equipment tho but it is possible. Carlos Alcantar Race Telecommunications, Inc. 101 Haskins Way South San Francisco, CA 94080 P: 650.649.3550 F: 650.649.3551 -----Original Message----- From: William Herrin [mailto:herrin-nanog@dirtside.com] Sent: Friday, August 28, 2009 11:00 AM To: Jack Bates Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: FCCs RFC for the Definition of Broadband On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 9:47 AM, Jack Bates<jbates@brightok.net> wrote:
I've yet to hear an ILEC suggest that they not have batteries in the NID to support the voice in power outages.
The battery in my FTTH NID is completely useless. It maintains the voice side of the NID but drops the Internet side. Only, I cancelled the POTS service years ago and use a Vonage phone. So now I need a second UPS for the already-battery-backed NID or I lose phone service. Brilliant design that. IIRC, when my FTTH was installed, I was told: here's the battery. It's now your problem. When this light goes red, call the number here to BUY a new one. Folks handle batteries for their flashlights and emergency radios and cars and cordless phones. I fail to understand why asking the customer to handle one more battery would stymie them. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/> Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 2:15 PM, Carlos Alcantar<carlos@race.com> wrote:
The dropping of internet is done on purpose to preserve the battery for the pots when ac power is lost. This is an actual setting in just about all manufacturers of ftth equipment. You'll probably have a hard time to get them to change the profile on the equipment tho but it is possible.
Hi Carlos, I realize why it's done. I merely point out that there are common configurations in which the having the FTTH NID power the POTS circuitry and drop the Internet circuitry is exactly the opposite of correct. Where instead of preserving access to emergency responders, it is intentionally designed to cut that access. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/> Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
I agree, while the majority of government and service providers have the opinion that POTS is a lifeline service, and ethernet is not, I disagree. I know the service provider I work for is starting to change their views on this, but it will take time for the general populous of managers, etc throughout the nation to realize this. William Herrin wrote: On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 2:15 PM, Carlos Alcantar[1]<carlos@race.com> wrote: The dropping of internet is done on purpose to preserve the battery for the pots when ac power is lost. This is an actual setting in just about all manufacturers of ftth equipment. You'll probably have a hard time to get them to change the profile on the equipment tho but it is possible. Hi Carlos, I realize why it's done. I merely point out that there are common configurations in which the having the FTTH NID power the POTS circuitry and drop the Internet circuitry is exactly the opposite of correct. Where instead of preserving access to emergency responders, it is intentionally designed to cut that access. Regards, Bill Herrin -- Walter Keen Network Technician Rainier Connect (o) 360-832-4024 (c) 253-302-0194 References 1. mailto:carlos@race.com
One thing that I think service providers take into account is that while many people still have phones that do not have their own power source, battery backups for home computers aren't that common as a general rule. There is no need to have battery backup for internet services if the computer doesn't have power. :Luke On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Walter Keen <walter.keen@rainierconnect.net
wrote:
I agree, while the majority of government and service providers have the opinion that POTS is a lifeline service, and ethernet is not, I disagree. I know the service provider I work for is starting to change their views on this, but it will take time for the general populous of managers, etc throughout the nation to realize this. William Herrin wrote:
On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 2:15 PM, Carlos Alcantar[1]<carlos@race.com> wrote:
The dropping of internet is done on purpose to preserve the battery for the pots when ac power is lost. This is an actual setting in just about all manufacturers of ftth equipment. You'll probably have a hard time to get them to change the profile on the equipment tho but it is possible.
Hi Carlos,
I realize why it's done. I merely point out that there are common configurations in which the having the FTTH NID power the POTS circuitry and drop the Internet circuitry is exactly the opposite of correct. Where instead of preserving access to emergency responders, it is intentionally designed to cut that access.
Regards, Bill Herrin
--
Walter Keen Network Technician Rainier Connect (o) 360-832-4024 (c) 253-302-0194
References
1. mailto:carlos@race.com
-- :Luke Marrott
On Aug 28, 2009, at 3:17 PM, Luke Marrott wrote:
One thing that I think service providers take into account is that while many people still have phones that do not have their own power source, battery backups for home computers aren't that common as a general rule. There is no need to have battery backup for internet services if the computer doesn't have power.
Most people I know use laptops as their primary computers. These most definitely have battery backup. Regards Marshall
:Luke
On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Walter Keen <walter.keen@rainierconnect.net
wrote:
I agree, while the majority of government and service providers have the opinion that POTS is a lifeline service, and ethernet is not, I disagree. I know the service provider I work for is starting to change their views on this, but it will take time for the general populous of managers, etc throughout the nation to realize this. William Herrin wrote:
On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 2:15 PM, Carlos Alcantar[1]<carlos@race.com> wrote:
The dropping of internet is done on purpose to preserve the battery for the pots when ac power is lost. This is an actual setting in just about all manufacturers of ftth equipment. You'll probably have a hard time to get them to change the profile on the equipment tho but it is possible.
Hi Carlos,
I realize why it's done. I merely point out that there are common configurations in which the having the FTTH NID power the POTS circuitry and drop the Internet circuitry is exactly the opposite of correct. Where instead of preserving access to emergency responders, it is intentionally designed to cut that access.
Regards, Bill Herrin
--
Walter Keen Network Technician Rainier Connect (o) 360-832-4024 (c) 253-302-0194
References
1. mailto:carlos@race.com
-- :Luke Marrott
On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 3:17 PM, Luke Marrott<luke.marrott@gmail.com> wrote:
Bill Herrin: I realize why it's done. I merely point out that there are common configurations in which the having the FTTH NID power the POTS circuitry and drop the Internet circuitry is exactly the opposite of correct. Where instead of preserving access to emergency responders, it is intentionally designed to cut that access.
There is no need to have battery backup for internet services if the computer doesn't have power.
You would suggest treating the Ethernet and POTS ports the same for power backup purposes until the ethernet port drops its carrier for 60 seconds or so? Maybe do the same for the POTs ports wrt detecting whether any phones are attached? Nah, that would make far too much sense; there must be something fatally wrong with the idea. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/> Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
William Herrin wrote:
You would suggest treating the Ethernet and POTS ports the same for power backup purposes until the ethernet port drops its carrier for 60 seconds or so? Maybe do the same for the POTs ports wrt detecting whether any phones are attached? Nah, that would make far too much sense; there must be something fatally wrong with the idea.
Detecting whether an idle phone is attached to a POTS port isn't exactly trivial. This is more true now with modern phones that don't have mechanical ringers. Keeping the ethernet port up on battery if there is link makes sense. For that matter a "Wake-on-LAN" style polling to power it for a second every 30 to detect carrier would be even better. -- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - jay@impulse.net Impulse Internet Service - http://www.impulse.net/ Your local telephone and internet company - 805 884-6323 - WB6RDV
If all of the POTS attached phones on the "emergency" circuit are on-hook and there are no incoming calls, then not much power should be required. If a phone goes off-hook it should be much easier to detect. If the network facing side is up it can power up the POTS circuit when an incoming call is detected. Carrier detection for ethernet port power sounds reasonable. For the best of both world, maybe someone needs to build a "black wall phone" that is also the NID and integrates rechargeable D-cells (so flashlight batteries can always be swapped in if the rechargeables are dead). The box would then, of course, know whether it was on or off-hook and could even have a nice display for fiber-carrier status etc... On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 3:46 PM, Jay Hennigan <jay@west.net> wrote:
William Herrin wrote:
You would suggest treating the Ethernet and POTS ports the same for
power backup purposes until the ethernet port drops its carrier for 60 seconds or so? Maybe do the same for the POTs ports wrt detecting whether any phones are attached? Nah, that would make far too much sense; there must be something fatally wrong with the idea.
Detecting whether an idle phone is attached to a POTS port isn't exactly trivial. This is more true now with modern phones that don't have mechanical ringers.
Keeping the ethernet port up on battery if there is link makes sense. For that matter a "Wake-on-LAN" style polling to power it for a second every 30 to detect carrier would be even better.
-- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - jay@impulse.net Impulse Internet Service - http://www.impulse.net/ Your local telephone and internet company - 805 884-6323 - WB6RDV
Walter Keen wrote:
I agree, while the majority of government and service providers have the opinion that POTS is a lifeline service, and ethernet is not, I disagree. I know the service provider I work for is starting to change their views on this, but it will take time for the general populous of managers, etc throughout the nation to realize this.
Since no one is mentioning it, the batteries often can only power POTS for 8 hours. If ethernet is left on, it drastically drops the runtime. This is not acceptable, yet I haven't seen a good setup that can provide 8+ hours for both. Of course, it's been a non-issue for me. We run weeks without power just fine with FTTC. Jack
participants (8)
-
Carlos Alcantar -
Dorn Hetzel -
Jack Bates -
Jay Hennigan -
Luke Marrott -
Marshall Eubanks -
Walter Keen -
William Herrin