Telecom Collapse?

Thu Dec 4 16:45:19 UTC 2008

Many proposed regulations are struck down before they become required
regulation. Just like the FCC mandates that POTS and fiber have guaranteed
battery, the FCC will mandate that cellular towers do the same. This is
inevitable. The telco industry is notorious for litigating to death anything
that will require an increase in operational expenses but inevitably when a
service is deemed to be critical to society it has to comply.

On a personal note, when I worked in telecom I never once saw a cell tower
that was down due to power loss. Every tower I have worked with had some
form of power generation, be it natural gas or diesel. In addition, as a
cellular service consumer I have also never experienced an outage due to
cellular tower power loss.

phb

What about the cell site?  See
> http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/12/03/ap5776571.html
>
>        The Federal Communications Commission said Wednesday its
>        attempt to require backup power for all U.S. cell phone towers
>        is dead for now, but it will take another stab at the issue
>        soon.
>
>        The agency told a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.,
>        that it will honor a regulator's decision rejecting its
>        proposed requirement. Article Controls
>
>        The FCC proposed in May 2007 that all cell towers have a
>        minimum of eight hours of backup power, which would switch on
>        if a tower lost its regular energy source.
>
>        ...
>
>
>                --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb<http://www.cs.columbia.edu/%7Esmb>
>

-- 
Paul H Bosworth
CCNP, CCNA, CCDA