If there was a power outage...

[AbyssUnderground]

Blackouts/brownouts have never lasted more than a few minutes so far in my area, thats why I opted for a smaller UPS's. A 1000va UPS is about £100, I got these UPS's for under £30 each. They give enough uptime for the outages in my area so its not much of a concern. As I said, if I have to I have an hour or more of backup in the form of a battery and inverter.

I did have a 1000va UPS but it was "recalled" because of a fault found with them which makes them a potential fire risk. The company never got any more of the fixed batches in stock. This 1000va UPS was only £40, but it was well build except this small flaw (which was down to some of the main components used on the circuitboards as being cheap).

[DaggaDagga]

Are the street cabinets really powered by the street electricity supply? I find it hard to believe that the leccy companies would allow NTL to connect to their cable, which is probably not near the NTL box.

If they are supplied from elsewhere on the network (i.e. some central point), then a neighbourhood power cut may not knock it out. These central points may have UPSes.

I'm only guessing, please don't shoot me. Just throwing ideas about.

[Stu038]

As Paul mentioned there are a load of variables but;

All of the buildings have large UPS's and generators.

The cabinets that hold the fibre amplifiers are mains fed, usually from the most convenient lamp post or road sign the electricity board can find at the time they provide ntl with the power. Some may have battery and or ups back up dependant generally on who owned the original cable company.
Of course the time they will hold up for varies and is dependant on the usual problems you have with such devices.

The other Amplifiers in the network are fed through the coax network at a lower DC voltage, which (to set folks minds at rest) is isolated within the amplifiers from the coax which connects to peoples homes. In fact customer TVs and videos cause more problems for the network than vice versa. I got many a belt from dodgy VCRs when I used to install

hth

[sollp]

Originally Posted by Rob C

My area certainly doesn't have any power backup for the CATV/Broadband. There have been faults in the area with loss of service when the powere supply somewhere along the network has died. That's not necesarily to the local street (my house lights stayed on), but somewhere maybe even in the next town through which my services get routed.

Simple really there is no SLA on residential services so no obligation on uptime. If you need guarantees you have to pay more for professional suppliers (and that's not Clara.net - see my other thread )

Yes there are SLA's within the network to fix faults, or for when a power outage occurs to get a generator applied. The Network Tech will get the fault for a power outage and will restore power. Sometimes as already said, the outage will affect other areas within a few street and literally the lampost and house next to the telco cab will have mains power but the Telco or CATV cab won't. But rest assured Network Tech's are on call 24hrs a day 7 days a week 365 days a year, so when the fault is raised it is restored with a certain time scale. Usually within an hour.

[RonJon]

Originally Posted by DaggaDagga

Are the street cabinets really powered by the street electricity supply? I find it hard to believe that the leccy companies would allow NTL to connect to their cable, which is probably not near the NTL box.

If they are supplied from elsewhere on the network (i.e. some central point), then a neighbourhood power cut may not knock it out. These central points may have UPSes.

I'm only guessing, please don't shoot me. Just throwing ideas about.

There are different phases for supply.

NTL have a seperate feed from the leccy company , normally when street lights go out NTL's commercial power will also fail.

This doesn't mean that we draw power from the street lights, it means that the power is being drawn from the same phase.

The 240v is downrated to 60v and then pushed round the coaxial network.

Off the top of my head the following area's have battery back up....Walthamstow, Glasgow, Nottingham (thinks? too may glasses of wine, can't remember where else).

[nffc]

Originally Posted by RonJon

Off the top of my head the following area's have battery back up....Walthamstow, Glasgow, Nottingham (thinks? too may glasses of wine, can't remember where else).

Be interesting to know. I don't recall the BB being genuinely down much. Of course if our power's off the SACM and router as well as the PCs won't work so you can't really test that!