TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Emergency Comms, was: Is Your Telephone AC Power Dependent?

Emergency Comms, was: Is Your Telephone AC Power Dependent?

Danny Burstein (dannyb@panix.com)
Mon, 29 Jan 2007 18:40:40 EST

In <telecom26.23.6@telecom-digest.org> T <nospam.kd1s@cox.nospam.net> writes:

[ snip; just a bit left for some context ]

>> Doesn't the cell tower connect to the rest of the world via copper or
>> fiber feed ? How many of those towers have backup power ? The
>> majority of tower sites in my rural area have 4 hours of battery
>> backup without an on site generator. After 4 hours you are SOL.

>> That's why our local ham radio repeater is located at one of the few
>> cell tower sites with a standby generator. We also have 48 hours of
>> battery backup. Steve N2UBP

> Around here they don't bother putting backup power at most cell sites.
> When Nextel put one of their cell sites on the building we're in we
> offered them a tap off our generator but they didn't want it.

You think that's bad? How about the A Number One Key Emergency Radio
System, the one operated by the US Government specifically (in part)
as an emergency alert system, the one that many, make that MANY,
companies, people, utilities, governments, sirens, and _other_ radio
stations slave off of ...

... has NO backup power in 1/4 of its locations?

I'm referring to the NOAA (formerly "weather bureau")
radio network.

I noticed that their transmitters covering NYC were off the air in the
2003 blackout. I've been looking into this and have recently gotten
the figures that about _one quarter_ of their transmitters will go
dead when utility power cuts out.

Not very shmmmarrrtttt, is it.

_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

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