Telephone Power Dependency

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Telephone Power Dependency

• Do your phones work when the lights go out?

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In the old days

• Your dial tone came from the Telephone company
  Central Office (CO).
• The old telephone ran on voltage that came from
  huge batteries in the CO.
• The batteries were kept charged by either the
  power company or huge generators with weeks of
  fuel.

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Now

• Todays technology comes with a price
  electricity.
• Now we need to provide power to our phones, our
  phone systems
• And to the equipment that makes fiber optic
  networks possible.

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Low Tech Solution

• First the easy solution to the big problem
• Educate the Public to get a simple or old phone
  in the house.
• Does your phone have a display? Answering
  machine? Cordless? It has a second cord that
  goes to an electrical outlet.
• When the lights go out, these phones die.

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Excuses

• I have a generator
• Will you be able to call for help if it doesnt
  start?
• How will you call for the Fire Department if it
  catches fire?
• How many days of fuel will you have available?
• Will you run it 24/7?

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Excuses

• I have a cell phone
• How will you be charging it?
• Will the towers survive?

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Message

• Have at least one simple phone in the house.
• Add this to your agencys home disaster inventory
  list.
• ( and take the analog TV OFF the list HDTV and
  EM http//rayvaughan.com/HDTVEM.htm )

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Harder Problems to fix

• The next problem doesnt have such an easy fix.

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See the Light

• Fiber Optic technology allows for huge amounts of
  voice and data over many miles on a hair-thin
  piece of glass.
• BUT, Glass conducts light, not power.
• Something has to convert the digital light
  signals back into analog electrical signals.
• This conversion requires sophisticated electronic
  equipment that needs power.

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Remote Terminals

• Covert Fiber Optic signals to regular phone lines
• Powered by the local power utility
• 4 to 8 hours of battery power
• Usually no backup power source on site
• Sometimes called SLC, Subscriber Loop Carrier

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Is this really a problem?

• If there is a long (gt4 hours) power outage who
  will be effected?
• Everyone. Calling 911 will be impossible.
• You. Your Public Safety Facility may be out of
  service.
• Cellular Sites are interconnected with circuits
  fed by the same RTs

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Wilma
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War Stories

• Hurricane Wilma October 2005
• South Florida
• Weak Category 2 hurricane
• 20.6 Billion in damage
• 36 deaths in Florida
• Wide area but minimal flooding
• Complete power failure in South Florida
• 3,241,000 customers, 6,000,000 people without
  power
• Weeks to restore power to many areas

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How Bad was it?

• http//ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/wilma/30112791.jpg
• Photos by NOAA

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Communication Failure

• As I had predicted, we had major communication
  failures.
• The area effected by Wilma was so wide, resources
  available in the area were overwhelmed.

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Fire Stations

• Our generators came on
• VoIP phones, delivered by T1, ran until the RT
  died
• Backup Hotline/Fax Line also on RT
• Last resort UHF Public Safety Radio System
• Conventional, Simplex available
• No common points of failure

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KB Radio Site

• Hub site for South end of the County
• T1s to dispatch, other sites failed
• Site in In-Cabinet Mode, 1 RX, 1 TX
• Long RT failure
• Portable generator set up
• Fuel shortage
• Misconnection

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Outage Time Line

• Event
• Power outage
• 4 hour countdown starts
• End of wind event, earthquake
• Batteries start to die
• No communication
• Generators arrive
• Fuel shortages

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Katrina Facts

• Estimates of the damage
• Initially over 1.75 million people without phone
  service
• 131 Central office effected and 19 of them either
  destroyed or heavily damaged, serving a total of
  187,000 lines.
• Cost to restore/replace 400-500 million
• Data and Photo Source The Central Office

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Verizon Central Office, WTC
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Verizon Central Office, WTC
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Verizon Central Office, WTC
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Verizon Central Office, WTC
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Verizon Central Office, WTC
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Action Items

• Establish a working relationship with your telco
  technical expert
• Identify your critical locations
• Sorry, theyre not ALL critical
• How will a Telcom outage effect your process?
• Whats convenient and whats mandatory?
• Define backup systems
• Public Safety Radio

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Action Items 2

• Start with your most critical. Ask
• Where do these lines/circuits need power to
  operate?
• Your end. You better trust your own power
• The CO. Batteries, large generators.
• Your concern the everywhere else
• Is there an automatic generator at each?
• Home-Run to CO? Or in a loop?

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Take a look

• Learn what to look for
• Identify the RTs in your area
• Look for generators
• Ask questions
• Your regular Telco Tech is a great resource for
  how things really are

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Types of RTs

• Above Ground
• Underground
• Flooding?
• In-Building
• In someone elses building
• Worst case. You depend on their planning and
  survival.

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Clues that its a RT

• Power Meter
• Hum or fan noise
• Thick cables radiating out
• Frequent Telco Trunks parking
• Address or RT ID stickers

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On-Site RT

• The best solution is to have your RT in your
  facility
• You provide the primary power
• You provide the security
• Verify fiber route
• Route redundancy
• Make sure you trust everyone in your loop

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Case Study

• KB Radio Site
• Now has an on-site RT
• Independent of area RT
• On our generator
• Redundant fiber routes to CO

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Single Points of Failure

• Better to have multiple
• Remote Terminals
• Generators
• Fibers and Fiber routes
• Copper circuits (if close enough to CO)
• Communication Companies

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Generators

• Subject to barometric pressure failure during
  storms
• Over/Underspeed due to wind
• Water in air intake
• Projectile damage
• Check the oil change frequency
• Oil Filters on site
• Downtime for changes

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Flooding

• Many RTs and other Telecom facilities in Katrina
  were flooded.
• Fiber can be underwater
• Equipment cant be.
• Identify any critical systems in your system that
  need to be moved higher
• Even a CO can be at risk of flooding

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Terrorist Targets?

• RTs could be an easy target for anyone wanting to
  effect communication in an area.
• Most are easy to spot when you know what youre
  looking for.
• Exposed fiber, cables, power
• Even simple vandalism at an RT can put you out of
  service.

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Monitoring

• Your Telco should monitor every RT
• Investigate every alarm, even open doors
• Roll generator when AC power fails
• Not when batteries fail

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Regulators

• Require permanent, automatic generators for all
  new RTs
• Encourage RT clustering
• Require response levels
• Ratios of portable Generators to RTs
• Phase out RTs without automatic power backup
• Mandate in-building RTs for all Public Safety
  buildings

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More Information

• My information site about Powering and Remote
  Terminals
• TelephoneFailure.com