[60709] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Battery lifetimes RE: East Coast outage?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Lesher)
Fri Aug 15 00:29:43 2003
From: David Lesher <wb8foz@nrk.com>
To: nanog@merit.edu (nanog list)
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 23:50:59 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20030814220437.073903a8@209.112.4.2> from "Mike Tancsa" at Aug 14, 2003 10:09:32 PM
Reply-To: wb8foz@nrk.com
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
Speaking on Deep Background, the Press Secretary whispered:
>
>
>
> Thanks. A couple of people told me that the target is 8hrs for Bell Canada
> huts. So hopefully some power will make it there before long. Not sure how
> well they will prioritize what huts to charge with portable gensets. I
> imagine they dont of course have a portable genset for every hut out there.
This is the dark stepchild of the modern telco decentralization.
CO's have -48v everywhere, & Diesels (or turbines) to keep
their -48v strings up. Further, it used to be the LEC had a
truck-mounted semi generator ready to move in case the CO one
failed.
But all those SONET hubs in basements, SLC's in the burbs and such
-- they don't have generators. They have X hours of batteries. In
the fine print, it says the LEC will have a portable generator
on site before they die.
That's doable if the failure is local; say a semi taking out
a power pole. But given anything bigger, a citywide or bigger
blackout, a regional ice storm, or whatever.... they do not have
the quantity of gensets they'd need, much less the manpower to
deploy AND maintain [refuel] same.
Then there's the issue that generators in dark areas tend to
grow legs, no matter how well nailed down.
Hope you folks have flashlights..
--
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
