Even the New York Times withholds the address

blitz blitz at macronet.net
Tue Nov 19 19:25:50 UTC 2002



>This is a good example of an area where governments can intervene and do
>some good.

Ugh..I contend they never improve a situation, only make it worse.


>1. Local governments can prohibit fuel storage and generators at telecom
>sites.

Telecom/Datacom sites would leave. period. You would be at a distinct 
disadvantage to the providers who DID have backup power. You would leave 
just after your customers did.


>2. Local governments can make it easy for telecom site operators to set up
>local generators and store fuel at sites that are near the telecom sites
>but not too near.

You have to run either fuel lines or power cables, take your choice. 
Imagine the local's reaction to a "Im going to build a big noisy diesel 
generator plant, right,...here..."
I'd imagine in dense build situations like NYC its really hard to do 
anything more than is being done. This of course cries for decentralization 
and moving out and running rings.


>Right now, people put the generators and the fuel in the same building
>because it is virtually impossible to install your own neighborhood power
>cabling. But there are few disaster scenarios in which a PoP would be
>undamaged at the same time as the nearby powerstation is out of action or
>disconnected.

Transformer failure, underground cable failure, water main failure, street 
collapse, all come to mind. Most failures are of the more pedestrian types. 
If the entire town goes dark, most customers are dark as well.

>  If the local power cable takes a different route from the
>power utility's cable then backhoe disease is avoided. If the local
>powerstation blows up, we are happy because the PoP is still running on
>utility power unlike the current situation.
>
>In fact, a single municipality could plan this as an integral part of
>their telecom infrastructure so that there are multiple telecom hotels
>spread far enough apart to avoid fate sharing and each one of them could
>be served by two local power stations, each of which serves several
>telecom hotels. These would also be spread apart to avoid fate sharing
>with utility power substations and cabling.

Problem is there isn't a whole lot of new planned building going on, most 
"hotels' are retrofits of older structures, their location such because of 
their proximity to the customer base/infrastructure. Youre stuck with 
what's available, and then limited by the particular building's design etc.
In an ideal world there would be redundant power, water, sewer, fuel, 
served at two or more entrance points at each building, everyone would 
connect to each other via multiple access points on opposite sides of their 
buildings..everything else is a mitigation of the lack of  a perfect solution.


>If you were offered a colo facility that supplied AC power from one
>utility and two local generator substation sources, would you rate this
>better or worse than a colo facility that contained its own in-house
>generators and fuel storage tanks?

Unless the costs/difficulty of providing multiple connections to different 
substations goes dramatically down for some reason, you're going to be 
stuck with the incumbent power provider and a genny. Local control over 
your means of backup power generation, for maintenance and reliability is 
always preferential. If it doesn't work, and its my fault, its one thing, 
if it doesn't work when I need it and its someone else's job to provide it, 
all that happens is shysters get rich.

>P.S. What if the colo facility offered built-in water chillers for cooling
>with all the water piped downhill, down the block to a cooling tower?
>Would this be better or safer than existing systems? Could it possibly be
>built this way without municipal government involvement?

Doubt it. Any time major construction of that type comes into play, 
municipalities want their piece.

Marc




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