[EAS] Cell Reliability

[media at openbroadcaster.com]

Up here in the Yukon, the entire network runs on one fiber cable 
connecting Whitehorse to the south.  If anything happens, a backhoe 
accident, forest fire,  everything quits including cell service, 
internet and bank machines.  These outages happen fairly regular, 
usually fixed within a day.  A couple of years ago there was an 
equipment failure here at the telco (a Bell subsidiary) that knocked out 
communications for all three territories, representing 40% of Canada's 
land mass.  It had something to do with GPS, that affected cell phones 
to not work and time displaying on handsets 00:00:00, not even local 
landlines were operational. First responders had slept in and there was 
a "sneaker net" going door to door to muster help. Nothing was working 
except for two way radios and a couple of radio stations. This happened 
during the early summer and not in the middle of winter.

Rob

On 2017-08-31 08:33 PM, Bill Ruck wrote:
> 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
>
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