EE Mast Backup Power

Alright, Is it still a common occurance for an upgrade on a mast to still not include batteries for backup on 4g/5g with EE? as local area masts always go down in area power outage and from this link Inside EE Cab the cabinet appears to have no power backup (Batteries) a let down on EE's part for continuity, Whereas Vodafone/O2 have batteries in most if not all their mast cabinets O2 Backup, Howcome with signal being relied on more than ever and is it just bad design? and yes a generator is not always possible but surely batteries are sufficient for small outages like it is for Voda/O2?

In reply to a post by thomaswarne01:

Alright, Is it still a common occurance for an upgrade on a mast to still not include batteries for backup on 4g/5g with EE? as local area masts always go down in area power outage and from this link Inside EE Cab the cabinet appears to have no power backup (Batteries) a let down on EE's part for continuity, Whereas Vodafone/O2 have batteries in most if not all their mast cabinets O2 Backup, Howcome with signal being relied on more than ever and is it just bad design? and yes a generator is not always possible but surely batteries are sufficient for small outages like it is for Voda/O2?

I'm going to guess it's because the pole is a local service pole providing a boost to 4G/5G service and if it goes off, adequate emergency coverage is provided from other masts to retain the basic requirements for voice service.

That video just shows the ISC which is the mains and fibre uplink cabinet. The batteries are usually stored in the much larger radio cabinet

My local EE/Three mast has battery backup that lasts about 40-45 minutes in a power outage. Once that goes we have no EE coverage - you have to go a few hundred yards to get a signal from a more distant mast.

In reply to a post by sheephouse:

My local EE/Three mast has battery backup that lasts about 40-45 minutes in a power outage. Once that goes we have no EE coverage - you have to go a few hundred yards to get a signal from a more distant mast.

Where I live, the last power cut caused the EE mast to go down straight away and it didn't come back I was trying to call 105 to inform them of the power outage as they didn't know but once i did manage to get a signal over 2G the call kept dropping and audio was cracking in and out so basically unusable, the vodaphone network luckily had signal to get in touch with them and everything worked that end.

Forgot to add that I was calling from outside even when i moved around a bit it was hard to get a sport where it would last.

I'm quite confident that either my mast is over capacity (which EE admit) its normally okay 90% of the time just sometimes goes a little weird. E.g. data speeds go from 80Mbps to 3Mbps.
I also think that half the problem is that they have dead batteries at the mast site.

Cell mapper (within eNB ID 16197 - LTE

Edited by RR_The_IT_Guy (Tue 04-Jan-22 10:15:45)

EE & Three share a mast very close to where I live, and as the land here is very flat, it covers a very large area. During our last power cut (a few years ago now) took out this mast, and the nearest Vodafone mast. Outdoors I had 1 bar of signal on both networks, but the working masts were then overloaded, and so no calls or data access working.

I drove 2 miles to the nearest drive-through coffee shop, where both networks worked well. It was also warmer.

( I don't have a landline, my internet is with Virgin Media )

Edited by jchamier (Tue 04-Jan-22 10:42:47)

In reply to a post by jchamier:

EE & Three share a mast very close to where I live, and as the land here is very flat, it covers a very large area. During our last power cut (a few years ago now) took out this mast, and the nearest Vodafone mast. Outdoors I had 1 bar of signal on both networks, but the working masts were then overloaded, and so no calls or data access working.

I drove 2 miles to the nearest drive-through coffee shop, where both networks worked well. It was also warmer.

( I don't have a landline, my internet is with Virgin Media )

I'm also on Virgin Media with VM VOIP, with no UPS, the same applies to 90% of my street. (I hope to leave soon in May to VDSL2 80/20 then 3 months after to OR FTTP on a 500Mbps down cheap package)

I will say my area isn't that flat, i'm at the bottom of a hill, the mast is at the top, the next nearest mast is 20M away and it's a 3G Vodafone monopole, although i know its being removed. The next three masts distance wise are all Vodafone and O2, and Three don't seem to have a 4G mast anywhere near me, I only get 3G, the 5G areas in St Neots get 4G but the rest is 3G sometimes. in regards to EE the majority of masts are high band 4G so don't work indoors, there's a lot of band 3 but not many masts where vodafone doesn't have any band 3 locally so its slow but consistent.

EE wise I know the closest mast to me is the one on top of the Hill the same for all 4 Providers, then the A1 which might give me some partial coverage, the next mast is centre of town for all 4 Providers two different mast sites however only 100M apart.

A few years ago, shortly after I'd done away with my land-line in favour of 4G broadband, we had a >6 hour power outage. Unfortunately in that time we had hedge-row fire in the field next to our house - there was a strong wind, and it was spreading fairly quickly toward our house and the surrounding trees.
Fortunately, we got it under control with a number of people and a lot of buckets of water. It does make me worry about the whole issue of emergency calls with FTTP though - I do have several UPS that keep my end working, but the rest of the infrastructure is not robust.

sheephouse

apart from wind damage to the actual fibres the FTTP is pretty robust to Power outages as long as you have UPS. The FTTP is only powered at the headend and your end and the headend will have battery backup and generators so will last as long as the generator has fuel. (Carbon Zero laws may eventually interfere with this! but emergency scenarios should always be catered for in my opinion).

It is likely that the end users UPS is the weakest point and the limiting factor in how long your service lasts.

In reply to a post by sheephouse:

A few years ago, shortly after I'd done away with my land-line in favour of 4G broadband, we had a >6 hour power outage. Unfortunately in that time we had hedge-row fire in the field next to our house - there was a strong wind, and it was spreading fairly quickly toward our house and the surrounding trees.
Fortunately, we got it under control with a number of people and a lot of buckets of water. It does make me worry about the whole issue of emergency calls with FTTP though - I do have several UPS that keep my end working, but the rest of the infrastructure is not robust.

I Do have to admit, I am slightly concerned that I could be in a similar position in terms of communication, I will admit I do live near a fire and ambulance station with a on call fireman living a few house away so there is no way I could be in that exact situation.

I would hope that FTTP infrastructure currently being deployed in an area such as mine would be able to last a full day without mains power.

I know my house isn't equipped to deal with power outages at the current time as it doesn't feel like a priority to me.I say this as i am in a town with various connectivity options. If it got to the stage where i was that desperate to get in touch with someone I would have to get in the car plug in an inverter and power the router that way or go somewhere there is signal.
I know when the power was out recently, i went from St Neots in cambridgeshire to Biggleswade in central bedfordshire and the power was also out there, however luckily one side of the road had power and the other didn't this was great since the mast was on the powered side. So i was just going around a shopping centre and 105 kept ringing me up to update me on how things were going. I will admit if Virgin Media had customer service like UK Power Networks then there would be a lot more hope for a lot of us.

I amit in your case there does need to be action taken to stop this happening again, did you by any chance contact OFCOM after what happened, if not I ask you do. If they don't hear about this then it never happened as far as they are concerned.

To me this is an issue which needs addressing, if we can't communicate via fixed line (copper) anymore (the majority will not be) then we need wireless methods to work, be reliable and have enough capacity,
If you cannot dial 999 in a power outage its not acceptable, regardless of downtime, i get it was hours, be we are not talking days.
If i could barely call a national infrastructure number that's got to be a high priority call considering its regarding national power infrastructure. They can't expect me to call 999 over a loss of power, that's a waste of resources but at the same time if no one knows about the problem how do you report it, if that's the only number you can call?