The Residential SLiC's that I was talking about are powered off of Central Office (CO) 48V "Battery", and probably do not have batteries in them? Therefore their high failure rates are not explained by "battery problems".
I do not consider putting some generators at some cell towers the solution, obviously this did not work in the Blackout of August 2003 when Senator Hillary Clinton had to discard all her cell phones, and personal communications devices, because they stopped working immediately, and queue up in line to use the Pay Phones. As far as I know the Cell Switches have no generators, and what about turning the generators on, and keeping them supplied with fuel? To solve this problem, Cell Providers should come up with an alternate/separate power generation system similar to CO 48V "Battery" used by the old Ma Bell, the land-line carriers. Obviously they are refusing to do this.
The Long-line repairman who changed our discussion from computer security to these issues also questioned my technical knowledge, but I think it comes from different perspective of Telecommunications? As some of this group knows I started building PBX's as a pre-teenager with used steppers, LineFinders, Selectors, and Connectors obtained from Canal Street, and also built Multi-Frequency Trunk-Tandem Operator tone sets. Taught Telephony and Data Systems Technician courses at Great Lakes. And was involved in the development of the STU-III, Advanced Narowband Digital Voice Terminal (ANDVT), Unit Level Circuit Switch (ULCS), and Unit Level Message Switch (ULMS).
Robert J. Perillo Principal Telecommunications Engineer dockmaster snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com