[EAS] Cell Reliability

[Bill Ruck]

Tim,

Remember the fire north of Reno a couple of months ago?  That fire 
burned AT&T's aerial fiber run and put most of Humboldt County NV 
back into the 20's.  No cell service on most carriers (my Verizon 
worked) and no Internet service.

In what I call a "single string" you can get technology to work and 
save money.  Until the string breaks and you have no backup or 
redundancy, leaving one to hold a sensitive part of your anatomy 
saying "Oops".

It is amazing how so many people expect their cell phone to work 100% 
of the time.  While it is true that it works well much of the time it 
is nowhere as reliable as the old fashioned red and green 
wires.  Even with the sad state of what used to be The Bell System.

The FCC reports don't go into details but it looks like slowly the 
area is coming back to life.

Bill Ruck
Curmudgeon
San Francisco

At 06:54 PM 8/31/2017, you wrote:
>How was the wireline telecomm system? The Central offices> If they 
>weren't up, the cell system wouldn't be much good, either.
>
>Did any cell towers (or any other towers, for that matter) go down?
>
>Somehow, I think the cell phone folks think an event like this is 
>not possible. They are too busy counting small portraits of Presidents.
>
>Tim Stoffel
>
>--
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: EAS [mailto:eas-bounces at radiolists.net] On Behalf Of Bill Ruck
>
>We all know that the cellular industry pushes back from being 
>required to have high reliability and backup power.  Yes they do 
>have generator connections at most cell sites and a few mobile 
>generators in a yard somewhere but they do not have full backup 
>power everywhere.
>
>That is why when bad things happen any cellular based system -- even 
>FirstNet -- is doomed.
>
>Bill Ruck
>Curmudgeon
>San Francisco