Power Failure

Our Business internet connection is FTTC in Midhurst, West Sussex. Current the whole town has a power failure but our solar power farm on the roof is providing all the power we need. I would have thought our internet connection would be OK, but no we have no service! Also being on VoIP, no phones either. This is a pretty poor state of affairs by the telecommunications industry. Your thoughts on this please ............

Edited by trolleybus (Mon 23-Oct-23 11:09:09)

The cabinet that supplies your FTTC has only a limited power backup which has been exhausted while the power cut has being ongoing. The problem will disappear with FTTP (provided the head-end exchange has proper contingency arrangements).

Mobile phones are as liable as FTTC to stop working in a power cut as most masts similarly suffer from a lack of adequate power back-up.

So a pretty poor state of affairs in more than one arm of the telecommunications industry.

The whole town ? Then Openreach bods will be running round like blue arsed flies replacing batteries…… they don’t last long though

So a pretty poor state of affairs in more than one arm of the telecommunications industry.

I see it as more of a failure of the regulators - commercial companies will always cut costs unless they are forced to meet a particular standard.

In reply to a post by sheephouse:

So a pretty poor state of affairs in more than one arm of the telecommunications industry.

I see it as more of a failure of the regulators - commercial companies will always cut costs unless they are forced to meet a particular standard.

Probably sums up what I really meant. Thanks.

Blame the power companies - why don't they have built in resilience?

Maybe they should have two grids feeding every house and business and then other entities such as BT would not have any requirement for back up supplies.

It's also partially a failure of the business concerned - if they have always-on requirements they need to look at ethernet services.

It doesn't just affect businesses though - there are lots of individuals that may need a resilient telephone service .
We had a hedgerow fire that threatened to spread to our house a few years ago - in the middle of a 7 hour power cut. No land-line, no mobile (tower lasts ~45 mins). Option was to drive somewhere to make a 999 call or do without help - neighbours and lots of buckets eventually did the job.

In reply to a post by sheephouse:

It doesn't just affect businesses though - there are lots of individuals that may need a resilient telephone service .
We had a hedgerow fire that threatened to spread to our house a few years ago - in the middle of a 7 hour power cut. No land-line, no mobile (tower lasts ~45 mins).

Using your emergency as an example everyone must need a resilient telephone service, so what is the solution?

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

Our Business internet connection is FTTC in Midhurst, West Sussex. Current the whole town has a power failure but our solar power farm on the roof is providing all the power we need. I would have thought our internet connection would be OK, but no we have no service! Also being on VoIP, no phones either. This is a pretty poor state of affairs by the telecommunications industry. Your thoughts on this please ............

This issue has been discussed here many times about FTTC cabinets only having a short battery backup period so I do feel sorry for non forum members who have recently switched to digital voice and are totally oblivious to this issue and only find out when the power goes off.

My previous post didn't make clear I had VoIP rather than a PSTN land-line. PSTN would have worked, as that was designed to be resilient (and powered from the exchange, with backup power facilities).
The solution is for regulators to require resislence to be built in to any system replacing PSTN (i.e. VoIP and/or mobile) That won't happen as it would impact company profits.

In reply to a post by sheephouse:

My previous post didn't make clear I had VoIP rather than a PSTN land-line. PSTN would have worked, as that was designed to be resilient (and powered from the exchange, with backup power facilities).
The solution is for regulators to require resilience to be built in to any system replacing PSTN (i.e. VoIP and/or mobile) That won't happen as it would impact company profits.

I figured out you must be referring to VOIP normally if there is no profit then there is no business. May be the next Labour government will bring it back into public ownership so income tax can be used to pay for the resilience.

'Resilient' implies more than you had with PSTN, in my opinion. You had a copper pair that was powered from the exchange. You had no protection in the event of a tree falling through an overhead cable, or a car knocking a green cabinet off its base.

Legacy PSTN protected you against a local power outage, that was all. Openreach FTTP is equally able to deal with local power outages since there's nothing active in the network. There are other situations where VoIP is more 'resilient' than PSTN - say your local exchange burns down, with VoIP your number will still work.

Edited by jpm (Mon 23-Oct-23 18:19:25)

In reply to a post by jpm:

'Resilient' implies more than you had with PSTN, in my opinion. You had a copper pair that was powered from the exchange. You had no protection in the event of a tree falling through an overhead cable, or a car knocking a green cabinet off its base.

Legacy PSTN protected you against a local power outage, that was all. Openreach FTTP is equally able to deal with local power outages since there's nothing active in the network. There are other situations where VoIP is more 'resilient' than PSTN - say your local exchange burns down, with VoIP your number will still work.

But any measure of resilience has to take account of both impact and likelihood so although there is a lack of PSTN resilience if your exchange burns down there is a greater lack of PSTN resilience if your cabinet suffers a power loss since the likelihood of the power loss in many rural areas is orders of magnitude greater than the likelihood of the exchange burning down.

In the overall scheme of things that is all nit-picking anyway; the greater worry is the lack of resilience at the supplier level with some parts of the network just being left to fail (mobile phone masts, FTTC cabinets etc,) and other parts having the protective measures removed from the supplier and passed to the end-user (UPS for routers, cordless phones etc.) without any element of compensation for the reduction in service from the supplier.

Edited by GonePostal (Mon 23-Oct-23 19:12:01)

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

Our Business internet connection is FTTC in Midhurst, West Sussex. Current the whole town has a power failure but our solar power farm on the roof is providing all the power we need. I would have thought our internet connection would be OK, but no we have no service! Also being on VoIP, no phones either. This is a pretty poor state of affairs by the telecommunications industry. Your thoughts on this please ............

PSTN inc. FTTC isn't resilient. Period.

If you want resilient for a business you'll need to stump up for it:
- FTTP without cabinets
- Ethernet / EAD / DIA circuits
- Starlink

In an extended power cut 4/5G isn't particularly any more "resilient" than a copper pair (or even an AltNnet fibre) running via a cab. Most bases don't have diesel gensets attached and the batteries have a finite life.

Unless it has a long term grid alternate power source (perhaps a battery with a renewable source) or diesel set at either end of the link - then from a power perspective it isn't resilient.

Alas, if your FTTP comes from a Subtended Head End (SHE), common in rural areas, these have only short life batteries, so that is not a resilient solution to power outages.

The new Emergency Services Network (ESN), if it ever gets deployed, will also suffer this resilience problem. Understandably, Chief Police and Chief Fire Officers are less than delighted at this prospect. The currently used TETRA system has maintained power at most sites.

Satellite links are a popular work-around, though these can suffer a lack of resilience should the satellite operator decide to restrict connections in a particular area.

Supplier management can only go so far. The Power provider will be regulated and working as fast as possible to restore their service. People/companies will need to look at the SLA from their own telecom provider to ensure it meets their own requirements and if not put mitigations in place but this example is an edge case.

In reply to a post by smouty:

. . . but this example is an edge case.

Outside the metropolitan areas there are lots of edge cases then. A typical rural power cut will last for somewhere of the order of 12 hours and a lot of rural areas will see one or two a year (and likely to get worse if the predicted effects of global warming like more violent storms come to pass).

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

Outside the metropolitan areas there are lots of edge cases then. A typical rural power cut will last for somewhere of the order of 12 hours and a lot of rural areas will see one or two a year (and likely to get worse if the predicted effects of global warming like more violent storms come to pass).

even with exchange power many of the rural areas phone lines are on overhead (poles) so a rough enough storm would disconnect people anyway.

In small towns and large metropolitian areas the mobile transmitters also go out with power cuts, and those nearby get overloaded, so phone calls and data all fail... my last experience of this was before 4G rollout but I had to drive 5 miles to get working signal.

In reply to a post by jpm:

Legacy PSTN protected you against a local power outage, that was all. Openreach FTTP is equally able to deal with local power outages since there's nothing active in the network. There are other situations where VoIP is more 'resilient' than PSTN - say your local exchange burns down, with VoIP your number will still work.

Not actually necessarily true. Your VOIP provider could have a single homed network in one location and be just as vulnerable to a fire. But also, as it stands it is possible if your VOIP number was ported in from a landline an issue on the BT side of the network could still leave your number broken.

It's not *resilient* in the true sense of resilient at all.

PSTN inc. FTTC isn't resilient. Period.

If you want resilient for a business you'll need to stump up for it:
- FTTP without cabinets
- Ethernet / EAD / DIA circuits
- Starlink

FTTP isn't resilient

Ethernet EAD/DIA is not resilient unless you take RO2 circuits.

Starlink isn't resilient.

None of those are good examples.

In reply to a post by therioman:

PSTN inc. FTTC isn't resilient. Period.

If you want resilient for a business you'll need to stump up for it:
- FTTP without cabinets
- Ethernet / EAD / DIA circuits
- Starlink

FTTP isn't resilient

Ethernet EAD/DIA is not resilient unless you take RO2 circuits.

Starlink isn't resilient.

None of those are good examples.

I'm talking about when 'the lights go out" - ie the topic of this thread - interruptions due to the electricity supply.

"Resilience" is a very big topic and I'm well aware that neither of the options are fully resilient in the simplest sense either physically / diversity or otherwise.

Nothing manmade is completely immune from catastrophic failure. How many people carry a spare mobile phone just in case their main one goes belly-up? You (figuratively) keep your fingers crossed and hope Lady Luck isn't having a really bad hair day when you really need it.

That's not to say some companies couldn't do more than they are doing but providing resilience costs money, sometimes a lot of it, and in most cases it doesn't sell phone or data contracts to ordinary customers. Assuming they've even heard of it

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

[...]
I'm talking about when 'the lights go out" - ie the topic of this thread - interruptions due to the electricity supply.

"Resilience" is a very big topic and I'm well aware that neither of the options are fully resilient in the simplest sense either physically / diversity or otherwise.

I think it's a bit daft not to acknowledge the relatively good level of resilience of the PSTN network (for voice), in its final incarnation, on occasions when "the lights go out". Note that I'm not making an argument for its retention, merely an acknowledgement that it was quite robust as a system.

Voice over FTTP - and speficially that provided as a 'managed solution' by a telco such as BT - has the potential to be quite resilient too, albeit on the condition that the end user has some sort of back up battery power supply.

I'm not sure how many people will bother with such a thing - but then again there will be a lot of people currently using DECT cordless phones on their PSTN lines that likely have little to no preparation for a power cut either. (Perhaps there is a corded phone in the house, but it's stuffed away in a box in the attic or under the stairs!)

I do wonder if there might come to be the suggestion of a take up of PMR walkie talkies as a (further) backup measure for those desiring some form of power-cut proof emergency communucation - though this would only be useful if adoption was reasonably widely spread.

One final thought... as reassurung an idea as it is of being able to summon say an ambulance or the police, it's less useful if you then have to wait several hours for them to turn up (if at all). But that's another conversation!

Edited by binary (Tue 24-Oct-23 11:23:48)

Yes this is why I put 'resilient' in quote marks - the phrase to me at least has a very specific meaning usually around dual paths and avoiding single points of failure, but I was replying to a post that used it to describe the existing PSTN network, hence the quote marks, because I don't agree that a single copper line is resilient at all.

You are right, having a resilient service can mean different things to different people be it individuals or businesses. The issue generally with the PSTN being switched off is people feel they are losing something so want their provider/openreach to do something about it. The fact there have always been vulnerabilities like cable damage, cable theft or something else typically goes over peoples heads as they are so focussed on the things that are losing now.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

You are right, having a resilient service can mean different things to different people be it individuals or businesses. The issue generally with the PSTN being switched off is people feel they are losing something so want their provider/openreach to do something about it. The fact there have always been vulnerabilities like cable damage, cable theft or something else typically goes over peoples heads as they are so focussed on the things that are losing now.

No doubt you live in a metropolitan area with both fixed line and mobile communications and find it hard to take on board the consequences of being without any form of communication. The worry is that the people who do not have the same level of technical awareness as most people frequenting this and similar forums are gradually waking up to the consequences of the PSTN turn-off. This is of particular concern to those living in areas without any mobile reception. A lot of people in that situation are in vulnerable categories and are worried about the impact. In terms of resilience I can only speak from personal experience but we have never lost PSTN service in our mobile-signal free village in any of the power cuts we have seen so it is understandable that people feel they are being placed at risk without any sensible form of mitigation when the PSTN ceases.

Edited by GonePostal (Tue 24-Oct-23 13:45:12)

Power cuts (in a rural area like mine) are not uncommon, and PSTN is resilient in those situations while VoIP isn't.
Regarding other faults, I have always found that the (rare) PSTN faults that I and family have experienced have been fixed very quickly. Broadband faults not so much - it can take several days before an ISP even reports the fault to OR, and then several more days to get it fixed.
So although PSTN isn't totally resilient in all cases, it is more so than VoIP.

Have to add that overall VoIP just isn't as reliable as a landline, never will be. My elderly parents now on VoIP have so far had 3 occasions their 'landline' has stopped working but prior to moving over to Digital Voice with BT, we can't recall a time the landline hadn't worked.

Just many more things to go wrong, and now if there is a broadband problem, you can't use your landline to call support, making a mobile phone a necessity.

FTTP hopefully will bring some reliability improvements as people leave copper behind completely, but once upon a time you could rely on the landline, now, whilst many still have something that resembles a landline, it's just an emulation and is now far removed from what it once was

Of course the use of landlines has dropped so much there is no profit left in it, only the expense of maintaining all the equipment. I do think though that methods of communication have become far too complicated and fragmented, and one day, due to some emergency situation, we will suffer for not having a simple standard way everyone is connected.

Edited by E300 (Tue 24-Oct-23 14:20:20)

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

No doubt you live in a metropolitan area with both fixed line and mobile communications and find it hard to take on board the consequences of being without any form of communications.

No to living in a metropolitan/urban area, Yes to having FTTP (without a SHE) and barely for mobile communication even on a good day. I appreciate your communications situation isn't good.

In reply to a post by E300:

Just many more things to go wrong, and now if there is a broadband problem, you can't use your landline to call support, making a mobile phone a necessity.

And when your rely on wifi calling it's even worse.

FTTP hopefully will bring some reliability improvements as people leave copper behind completely, but once upon a time you could rely on the landline, now, whilst many still have something that resembles a landline, it's just an emulation and is now far removed from what it once was

Of course the use of landlines has dropped so much there is no profit left in it, only the expense of maintaining all the equipment. I do think though that methods of communication have become far too complicated and fragmented, and one day, due to some emergency situation, we will suffer for not having a simple standard way everyone is connected.

Our FTTP has been much more reliable than the old FTTC, and our copper phone ilne which we still have is dire at times with crackling, but it works.