Re: Battery lifetimes RE: East Coast outage?

[David Lesher <wb8foz () nrk com>]

Speaking on Deep Background, the Press Secretary whispered:
> Thanks. A couple of people told me that the target is 8hrs for Bell Canada 
> huts. So hopefully some power will make it there before long. Not sure how 
> well they will prioritize what huts to charge with portable gensets. I 
> imagine they dont of course have a portable genset for every hut out there.
 

This is the dark stepchild of the modern telco decentralization.
CO's have -48v everywhere, & Diesels (or turbines) to keep
their -48v strings up. Further, it used to be the LEC had a
truck-mounted semi generator ready to move in case the CO one
failed.

But all those SONET hubs in basements, SLC's in the burbs and such
-- they don't have generators. They have X hours of batteries. In
the fine print, it says the LEC will have a portable generator
on site before they die.

That's doable if the failure is local; say a semi taking out
a power pole. But given anything bigger, a citywide or bigger
blackout, a regional ice storm, or whatever.... they do not have
the quantity of gensets they'd need, much less the manpower to
deploy AND maintain [refuel] same.

Then there's the issue that generators in dark areas tend to
grow legs, no matter how well nailed down.

Hope you folks have flashlights..

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