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

Tue Oct 15 00:02:27 UTC 2019

All true telco equipment is powered by batteries.  Commerical power or 
generators just recharge the batteries.  No switch over when commerical 
power is lost. Except when the generators(where equiped) switch over to 
recharge the batteries.

Comcast and telcos do not put batteries in all remote powered 
terminals.  I have an Enterprise grade Ethernet over coax connection.  
The headend it's distributed from doesn't have batteries.  If it loses 
power, doesn't matter if I have power or a generator or ups to take 
over.  This Internet connection goes down.

For telcos(when I worked there), they usually had batteries that would 
last 4 to 8 hrs at remote terminals with powered equipment. And a 
connection for a splice crew to come out and connect their generator to 
it for power in case of an extended outage.  Back then that was also how 
most cell phone towers were outfited.

I also have some knowledge of the commerical power grid in my local 
area.  It's not unheard of for the Comcast headend to lose power but my 
office doesn't.

Lyle Giese
LCR Computer Services, Inc.

On 10/14/19 17:38, Michael Thomas wrote:
>
> On 10/14/19 3:06 PM, Sean Donelan wrote:
>>
>> That is not why people are surprised.  When the house doesn't have 
>> power, and doesn't have home generator or UPS, (most) people are less 
>> surprised their DSL or Cable modem and VOIP doesn't work anymore.
>>
>> The reasons I saw people angry on twitter was no Comcast service even 
>> when they had power at the house (utility, generator, UPS). Their 
>> Comcast service died quickly, even when the home had power but the 
>> Comcast outside plant didn't seem to have any backup power.
>>
>> DSL modems also need power at the home, but the telco providers seem 
>> to have more backup power in the outside plant or central offices.  
>> That meant DSL worked as long as the house had power (or a home 
>> generator or UPS).
>>
> So it turns out that our local telco/isp does keep dsl running via the 
> same mechanism as they keep pots power backed up (i'm guessing it's a 
> diesel generator at the co, but am not sure). It seems that a lot of 
> the pedestals terminating the local loop these days do the conversion 
> to IP right there with sip/h.248/mgcp/rtp. I'm not sure how they get 
> power to the pedestal, but these were all a home run to the co at one 
> time so it probably wasn't hard to power them from the co. For all i 
> know, that's how they're all powered all the time, with a transfer 
> switch at the co, rather than tapping the local grid next to the 
> pedestal.
>
> Of course this is a lot of conjecture on my part... be glad to be 
> clued in by folks in know.
>
> Mike
>