CO backup power [telecom]

I think it does help, in that if the CO stays up a week it's possible DSL over POTS might stay up for that long also. Not certain, but possible. Please warn me if this is a grossly-over-optimistic interpretation.

Thank you!

bob prohaska

The weakest link in the emergency-power chain is the Controlled Environment Vault (CEV). Many have only a few hours of battery capability, and their battery maintenance is sometimes haphazard.

Some larger vaults have built-in or adjacent generators, but many others have only a power plug that connects a portable genset which must be transported, refueled, and safeguarded by mobile power crews that can be thwarted by flooded intersections, downed trees, or theft.

Let's face it: the "Alwways on, always works" phone service of my youth has been replaced by "When we feel like it, you're not important enough" compromises that follow economic lines. The only thing keeping many low-profit areas in the power plans at all is the power of the insurance lobby - along with politicians, both in fear of having to actually deliver on their promises.

Bill

In Minneapolis, Centurylink DSL has no power backup whatsoever at the pedestals. When the lights go out, the DSL goes out even if you have UPS. Don't know what the situation is with their fiber.

New term to me. Is it a larger version of a "node", one of those boxes on streetcorners where premisis wiring connects to a fiber or network cable on the way to the CO? The only reference I could find is

... which doesn't say a word about power backup.

That sounds like it'd be no better than a cellphone tower. Maybe worse.

What's the most reliable sort of telecom remaining? Still POTS, or maybe something else, like a carrier-agnostic cellular device (if such a thing exists...)?

Thanks for replying!

bob prohaska

Bob,

Things are a bit more complicated than that. First of all there are loop carrier/multiplexer units in the field that have very limited battery backup, some as short as 2 hours, rarely longer than 7 or 8. If you're on one of those, a week's backup at the CO is useless. As for DSL, I'm not sure there is any requirements for the CO equipment to have battery backup, as it is a relatively new and unregulated service. Also, since divestiture the old Bell System rules have generally been phased out to maximize profits. There was strong telecom opposition to the FCC rules I mentioned in my last post.

Unfortunately, I think Bill is right - phone service these days is "when we feel like it". On the other hand, the telcos haven't replaced a lot of the older switches, which had decent backup power. The original purpose of the battery backup wasn't to maintain service in the event of power failures, rather it was to save maintenance costs associated with replacing batteries in phones on customer premises. In fact, the Bell System saved over a million dollars the first year this was installed over 120 years ago, a nice bundle at the time that got better as they converted more offices..

Battery backup is expensive and the batteries have a short life (about

20 years in a CO building, only about 5 years in outside plant). Often the backup generators were installed as the building was being built and as the switches were upgraded the load dropped considerably. Some telcos have agreements with local utilities to drop off the utility, go on generator and feed the excess capacity back to the grid, all for a reduced rate from the utility. Utilities use it to help their supply through peaks. Of course the old stuff does wear out and replacements cost money, if you can even get them in the building....

Wired loops are on the way out, being replaced by fiber and radio. Don't expect any improvements to POTS and recognize that expensive and rarely used things like backup power will degrade.

Just my two cents...

Eric Tappert

PS - As an interesting aside, the power failure in New York back in

1965 shut the city down for a few days. Calling volume, however, more than doubled as everybody had to call everybody and tell them the power was off. New York Tel had those magic "message units" billing and they made out like bandits. The reserve power group at Bell Labs got a nice boost in their budget for a few years after that profitable experience. These kind of events only happen rarely though, so they aren't often seen in the quarterly profit statements...

Diversify. Have a combination of very different technologies.

Can't trust separate fiber from different carriers, as they may very well all go through the same conduit for many miles upstream of you, even if they enter the building in different APOPs, ultimately it probably runs the same route as the competitor. Same for copper.

Many cells phones let you swap SIMs, you can keep different SIMs from different carriers activated (of course for a price). Watch out for MVNOs, so getting say Mint as a backup for T-Mobile isn't going to do you any good.

Sorry, but I just choked on the alphabet soup 8-)

I've thought about using a Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) as a backup to wireline DSL. It sounds like you're suggesting a couple of cellphones configured as WiFi hotspots. I'm not ready for that just yet, but if you could explain the acronyms it'd give me a headstart when the day comes.

Just to be clear I'll be wanting to use a /29 public address block. Not sure how that works if I switch ISPs on the fly. Thanks for writing!

bob prohaska

***** Moderator's Note *****

If you are using an IP range that's assigned to your ISP, they own it. You can't take it to another ISP unless you pay the owner - a lot. However, if you can convince both your primary and your alternate ISP to map different /29 ranges to the same RFC1918 addresses, you'll be able to repoint the DNS for your domain name and switch over relatively quickly.

RFC 1918 specifies "Address Allocation for Private Internets."

The acronym MVNO stands for Mobile Virtual Network Operator.

Bill Horne Moderator

In article you write:

SIM = the chip which has your phone numebr and other network info

MVNO = Mobile Virtual Network Operator, a reseller that uses someone else's network. Mint uses T-Mobile so there's no point in using one to back up the other.

No ISP will let you take a /29 with you. The smallest chunk that can be routed separately is /24. Even if you have your own IPs, no mobile carrier I know of will let you use your own addresses.

WISPs that provide fixed wireless are different from mobile carriers, different technology, different business model. If there's one in your area, call them up and see what they offer.

You can also use 802.11 for WISP. WISPs using 802.11 over the ISM band have been around since the late 1990s.

Back in the 1990s there were two companies doing 802.11 networking using the ISM band - Western Radio and BreezeCom. 3Com, Intel and friends had not started making 802.11 equipment (yet).

Back then, the FCC had not assigned the familiar bands to 802.11. ISM was faster than 2G and 3G on a clear day. A rainy day or a tree in the line of sight would cause problems, though.

Jeff