The AM Forum

Well, we're on day 4 with generator power!

A few people have come over for showers, and my mother (who also has no power) is staying here.  No power means no water for most residents (wells).

A lot of town is still dark, although power was restored to the center of town yesterday.

One thing I have noticed is this:  Many people have switched from good old reliable Verizon (with complete battery backup, etc.) to Comcast for their telephone service.  Comcast was down (no cable anywhere in town), which knocked out the phone too!  Verizon Fios users were also down because the fiber optic cable couldn't take the stretching.

The phone cable which carries my telephone is literally laying in the street and people are driving over it!  Coming up my driveway, a series of trees broke poles and pushed the cables and wires to the ground!  Despite all that, my phone still works.   Cell phones were also knocked out, except for Verizon wireless.

Interesting!

Regards,

Steve

Sounds like the generator will need a nice reward of a good oil change for Christmas.

Remember hearing from a Telco guy about their unbelievable system 'up time' requirements (at least in the 'old days'). Seriously doubt cable/fiber/cell phones will ever get close.

 

   

Yup, I'll be keeping my twisted pair.

I'll bet you dollars to doughnut holes there's a huge surge of business in your local maternity wards next August!

 "
I'll bet you dollars to doughnut holes there's a huge surge of business in your local maternity wards next August! "

Please stop comenting on this. My wife sometimes looks over my sholder when i'm logged on here. She is getting suspicious regarding the recurent local power outages.


klc

Our Comcast was out too.  Never lost our twisted pair and the DSL (MV Comm) was fine all the time.

GL Steve and others in NE

Al VTP

We were out from 1:00AM Friday morning to 7:00PM Sunday evening.  The investment a few years ago in the 6KW generator and transfer switch built into the distribution panel paid off.  We had water, heat and sump pump (to remove Friday's rain from the cellar).  Had some aggravation maintaining the generator, but all in all we did pretty well compared with a lot of other people.  Its amazing traveling around going from areas that were not touched at all to total devastation within only a mile or two. 

Keep safe, people.

You fellows with POTS twisted pair are lucky.   More and more, new housing here in the sunshiine state are not being wired with copper at all.  I know all my near-by neighboours and I have only FIOS and cable TV.

Forget the batteries at the telco CO.  Every house has the ntwork interface between the fibre and house wiring, powered by  UPS rated foof 4-6 hours.  I'm told the proper care of the UPS, including battery replacement, is on the customer.  Verizon replaced the battery in mine and told me they were doing mine only because I am physically disabled.  So down here, an eight hour power outage means most of us will be without landline phones.

Something to think about.  Good luck to those affected by the ice.

Yes...something to think about.

Can't remember the last time I experienced a twisted pair outage - must be 20 or 30 years ago...or maybe more. Even then it was brief. When Comcast fails (as it did during this ice storm) I still have phone service and revert to dial up - for home and the business.

Will be a sad day if and when 'copper' disappears for good. Progress? We'll see...   

The twisted pairs often go dead when the batts in the local SLIC go dead.

In this part of the rural world the local telephone company moved the trunks from the node to fiber from copper so they could offer DSL.  When they did that, they provided a battery back up for the node.  We haven't had an extended outage so I don't know how long the battery pack will last. 

It won't be long that if you have telephone service for 3 days, you will be lucky.

yeah steve thats what i loved about slicks.  good old union double time to sit in the front seat of the bucket truck for 2-3 days straight while the onan that ran the bucked powered the slick.  Lightspan is even worse power hog so you had to race to the cabinet and get it powered up.

"In this part of the rural world the local telephone company moved the trunks from the node to fiber from copper so they could offer DSL.  When they did that, they provided a battery back up for the node.  We haven't had an extended outage so I don't know how long the battery pack will last. "

The fiber nodes in my area lasted about 24 hours and then the twisted pairs went dead for about 12 hours until Verizon got a generator hooked upto the underground vault where its located. I have TW cable phone service which goes out right away. Verizon Cell phones held up fine.

Steve,
WA2TTP

I'll admit that the twisted pair for telephone will probably be up a lot longer than the other services. But for mission critical type duties, as in a Data Aquistion and control network, and DSL....copper is very unreliable. You may be able to talk over hums and clicks and crosstalk, but a digital system using standard 9600 baud modems or your DSL will crumble..
I guess those cable company power supplies hanging on the poles do not have a long battery time to run the amplifiers on line.
So the stretched fiber has to be replaced??.....that doesn't sound too good.

fred