TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, and Firewall Problems

Re: Phone Multiplexer Failures, Power Outages, and Firewall Problems

John Levine (johnl@iecc.com)
19 Jun 2007 19:55:51 -0000

> He was stating that when you had an AC power failure, the batteries
> in the SLIC's only last for about 8 hours, then everything will go
> dead. This confused me because as someone with limited experience
> with SLIC's only at the cross-connects near the Demarc, the F2, or
> the F3 (Demarc), that these things ran off of CO 48V

These are indeed different beasts. Around here (upstate NY) for many
years they only used the CO powered version that turned a two-pair T1
into 24 local loops. A SLC is a much more sophisticated piece of
equipment, originally multiplexing 96 lines onto 4 or 5 DS1s, and now
handling up to 2048 lines onto various combinations of fiber and
copper. SLCs are all locally powered, and if the power goes out,
there better be a guy in a truck with a generator going around
recharging them all several times a day.

> Both Cell Phone Towers and Cell Switches immediately failed when AC
> Power went out, causing long cues at the Pay Phones around the
> city. This problem to my knowledge has not been fixed?

Yeah. Verizon's FIOS in effect puts a SLC on your house, with a
battery that it's your job to replace every couple of years, and when
you forget and the power fails, you lose. The decreasing resiliency
of the phone system to power failures is a real problem that nobody
seems to be addressing.

Regards,

John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, ex-Mayor
"More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly.

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