Telecom Collapse?

Thu Dec 4 15:53:49 UTC 2008

Once upon a time, Paul Stewart <pstewart at nexicomgroup.net> said:
> What worries me the most is a power outage longer than say 8 hours.
> This is the typical battery time at most cell sites, telco remotes and
> many telco CO's.  Beyond those 8 hours, it's quite probable that the
> site will go down and you'll have no cell or landline anyways.

The AT&T (BellSouth) remotes around here installed in the last 10 years
or so typically have natural gas generators installed, and the COs have
a pair of generators for redundancy.  Even many of the cell towers have
generators.  The telco infrastructure is pretty well backed up (I don't
know how well tested any of it is of course).

On the other hand, it appears that the cable infrastructure doesn't even
all have batteries (I know some people whose cable voice and data
services blink with the power).

-- 
Chris Adams <cmadams at hiwaay.net>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.