Comcast outages continue even in areas with PG&E power restored

Sat Oct 12 00:35:11 UTC 2019

On Fri, 11 Oct 2019, Michael Thomas wrote:

> 
> 
> On 10/11/19 4:31 PM, Sean Donelan wrote:
>       The FCC asked a half-dozen carriers about their network resilience plans last month.  Comcast was not one of the
>       service providers askedd about their plans.
>
>       The FCC should have looked closer at Comcast in California. While it was expected many people would loose home
>       Internet, voice, video service when their Customer Premise Equipment lost power.  The FCC no longer requires
>       battery backup for CPE.  That is now a customer responsibility.
>
>       It turns out, Comcast's outside plant was woefully unprepared to handle long, i.e. 24 hour, power outages.  And
>       even when power is restored to people's homes, Comcast service is often still down.
> 
> So I knew that telcos are required to battery backup pots, but are isp's too? I have a dinky little provider who also provides
> pots, but i have never been clear whether dsl stays up too in a blackout.
> 
> Mike
>

First of all DSL is not pots.

Traditional voice services run on a subscriber loop which is a pair 
of copper lines running from the central office to the customer end point.

This analog voice service is almost always backed up with a bank of 
batteries so that the service continues to run in the event of an 
emergency.

DSL is a data service that runs on the subscriber loop at the same time as 
the voice service.  This service is not required to be battery backed and 
will invariably stop working when power is cut at the customer end point.

Ted