Re: [uknof] Typical last mile battery runtime (protecting against power cuts)

[christian de larrinaga via uknof]

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An interesting study from Lancaster. Thank you for linking to it, as I
hadn't heard of it.

Noting that since 2015 many more payphones have been converted into book
lending stations.

Currently - Is there a min. battery backup requirement end to end 
(contractually or regulatory)
one can call on when provisioning a service? Or is this a hidden "feature"? 


C

Robin Williams via uknof <uknof@lists.uknof.org.uk> writes:

> From: Robin Williams <robin.willi...@tnp.net.uk>
> Subject: RE: [uknof] Typical last mile battery runtime (protecting against
>  power cuts)
> To: "Israel G. Lugo" <israel.l...@lugosys.com>
> CC: "uknof@lists.uknof.org.uk" <uknof@lists.uknof.org.uk>
> Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2023 18:02:03 +0000 (17 hours, 36 minutes, 27 seconds ago)
> Flags: seen, list
> Maildir: /INBOX
>
> There were a few research papers done after the 2015 Lancaster “Storm 
> Desmond” floods and the upshot for
> comms wasn’t great – an hour or so runtime on mobile and broadband cabinets 
> seems fair based on that
> experience.  Direct exchange lines as mentioned, are (were) generator backed.
>
>  
>
> It was strange to see people queueing to use pay-phones for the first time in 
> years, as the only form of
> communication and students more worried about trying to get some Internet 
> access to find out what’s going
> on, rather than the immediate availability of food/water. 
>
>  
>
> https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/engineering/about/news-archive/2016/learning-from-lancasters-power-cuts/
>
> --- 
> https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/media/lancaster-university/content-assets/documents/engineering/RAEngLivingwithoutelectricity.pdf
>
>
>  
>
> ^ see the “what we can learn” as well as the ‘comms’ section.
>
>  
>
> One thing that experience did impress on me, is that generators inevitably 
> quickly become a hotly-contested
> commodity in a wide-scale outage – if you rely on using someone else’s, you 
> may not be as far up the priority
> tree as you thought when the day comes.
>
>  
>
> Cheers,
>
> Robin
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  
>
> From: uknof <uknof-boun...@lists.uknof.org.uk> On Behalf Of Darren Wright
> Sent: 04 February 2023 21:15
> To: Rob Pickering <r...@pickering.org>
> Cc: uknof@lists.uknof.org.uk; Stephen Wilcox <steve.wil...@ixreach.com>; 
> Israel G. Lugo
> <israel.l...@lugosys.com>; Leo Vegoda <l...@vegoda.org>; Brandon Butterworth 
> <bran...@bogons.net>
> Subject: Re: [uknof] Typical last mile battery runtime (protecting against 
> power cuts)
>
>  
>
> Hi all.
>
>  
>
> My understanding is FTTC cabinets “should” last 4-6 hours as the front doors 
> have batteries in, however speaking
> to a lot of Openreach engineers over the years the batteries are mostly 
> poorly maintained, I have seen them only
> last mins before during a power cut.
>
>  
>
> We have 3x master exchanges in Northumberland and all have generator backups, 
> one of which kicks in
> regularly. We have ups’s in exchanges but they are only needed for upto 1 min 
> before the generators kick in.
>
>  
>
> Hope this helps.
>
>  
>
> Kind Regards,
>
>  
>
> Darren Wright
>
> Co-Founder & Director 
>
> Zone Broadband 
>
>  On 4 Feb 2023, at 9:01 pm, Rob Pickering <r...@pickering.org> wrote:
>
>  
>
>  One of my home circuits (rural area) comes out of an OpenReach FTTC AIO 
> cabinet very close by and next to
>  the same DNO transformer that feeds us.
>
>  Our DNO infrastructure is truly appalling and we have regular 4-12 hour 
> utility power outages when one of the
>  many antique transformers on our 11KV ring makes like a firework, and 
> occasional multi-day outages when
>  cables they have thrown in a culvert break down or trees fall on multiple 
> overhead sections during storms.
>
>  The AIO cabinet definitely has either UPS backup power, or is DC powered 
> from the main exchange. I suspect
>  it is the former as we lose the DSL lines only after 8+ hours, but we do 
> lose them.
>
>  We also lose mobile coverage after about 18 hours and it becomes more patchy 
> in the general area so some
>  of the mobile base stations are battery only.
>
>   
>
>  On Sat, 4 Feb 2023 at 18:41, Stephen Wilcox <steve.wil...@ixreach.com> wrote:
>
>  I can give an anecdotal reply, since I've never ran those types of 
> facilities myself..
>
>   
>
>  My understanding is that in general the main exchanges (the ones in cities, 
> formerly tandem exchanges
>  and /possibly/ the equivalent by cable) would have generator backup as they 
> are run as high availability
>  data centres, meaning they drop to battery for a minute then generators kick 
> in for as long as they are
>  fed fuel... in theory indefinitely unless there is severe emergency in the 
> area. 
>
>   
>
>  In the more rural locations I've not heard of generators being used and 
> think they are UPS driven, so from
>  minutes upwards but not stretching into hours.
>
>   
>
>  I would assume street cabinets either have no backup power or some basic 
> batteries at best - at least the
>  ones I've seen inside don't appear to have anything of note aside the telco 
> gear.
>
>   
>
>  Someone with first hand knowledge would be better placed to answer, but in 
> the absence of that, the
>  above is my experience from, well, quite some time ago but I don't see why 
> it would have changed..
>
>   
>
>  HTH
>  Steve
>
>   
>
>   
>
>   
>
>  On Sat, 4 Feb 2023 at 15:44, Brandon Butterworth <bran...@bogons.net> wrote:
>
>  On Fri Feb 03, 2023 at 03:16:28PM -0800, Leo Vegoda wrote:
>  > > Question is, how much battery runtime can I typically expect from ISPs'
>  > > last mile infra. I was hoping some of you here might help estimate from
>  > > own experience.
>  > 
>  > Ofcom ran a consultation on this in 2011. They suggested a minimum of
>  > one hour battery backup. My reading is that that is what they went
>  > with but the Ofcom site doesn't make that sparklingly clear, so I
>  > could be wrong. I'm also not sure if whatever obligation they came up
>  > with in 2011 has been updated.
>
>  Survey says 1 hour? It is academic what people think when there is an
>  actual plan for <checks notes> rolling 3 hour outages several times per day
>  https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/electricity-supply-emergency-code
>
>  So not only do you need to plan for the down time you need to consider the
>  recovery time of your system. Lead based systems will take many times
>  the run time to recharge and may not be ready for the next outage. Thus
>  LiFePo4 batteries are the way to go, we can recharge at more than our
>  discharge rate.
>
>  Without rolling blackouts we have already had this problem with normal rural
>  supply. We had many multi hour outages and concluded we need 6 to 8 hours
>  capacity if we wish to operate through them. That also allows time to find
>  the nature of the fault, the likely resolution time and for someone to take
>  a generator to site (perhaps multiple sites) if needed.
>
>  Due to the reach of fibre and FWA it is normal for our power to go down
>  while some customers are on a feed that is up, so it is not pointless
>  keeping our sites running.
>
>  We sent this note to our customers
>  https://www.dropbox.com/s/zvleyj0epqzne5y/20221103_winter_power.pdf?dl=0
>  so they can choose based on their needs rather than part fixing the
>  problem for them, having just internet may not be sufficient for many.
>
>  It is a bit late to be worrying about rolling blackouts this winter as the
>  threat has reduced and by the time a solution is deployed at scale it will
>  be spring or summer.
>
>  brandon
>
>   
>
>  -- 
>
>  Stephen Wilcox
>
>  BSO | IX Reach
>
>  E: step...@ixreach.com
>
>  M: +44 7966 048633
>
>  M: +1 305 613 9492
>
>   
>
>  *
>
>   
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>  -- 
>
>  --
>
>  Rob Pickering, r...@pickering.org
>
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-- 
christian de larrinaga 
https://firsthand.net

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