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

Wed Oct 16 19:51:49 UTC 2019

On 10/16/19 12:09 PM, Jeff Shultz wrote:
>
>> Interesting! And so primitive! So they go to all of the expense of
>> laying fiber, but not power too?
> Note: small local telco experience speaking below:
>
> Telco's tend to have experience with fiber, but probably not the
> construction and transmission of the sort of power plant that would be
> required to keep a bunch of  48V cabinets up and running reliably. We
> certainly don't. Besides, an advantage of fiber is that hopefully the
> copper thieves won't bother it.
>
>   By definition a remote terminal/cabinet is going to be... remote. Far
> more simple to install commercial power, and then haul out a generator
> if the battery string in the cabinet appears to be in danger of
> dropping below about 46v.
>
> We do run some 360v DC at micro-amp levels out to equipment like ONT's
> and remote 12 and 48 port remote VDSLAM's. But that's over existing
> 24-26 ga. plant. Frequently using multiple pairs to avoid excessive
> voltage drop over distances.
>
> Primitive is tested and works.
>
This is all very interesting, and thanks to everybody for giving me an 
education. My provider is very small as well, and spread out over a 
pretty large area (i'm in amador county in the mother lode). I don't 
know how many remote terminals they have, but i would think that it 
would be a lot. And if they need to be recharged every 8 hours or so, 
you'd be talking about a lot of people out in the field just to keep the 
lights on, right? And of course it takes time to recharge a battery too, 
so that makes it even worse. It seems that would be a pretty significant 
recurring cost.

How many watts does a typical remote terminal draw per subscriber?

Mike