engineerdan
join:2006-12-07
Manassas, VA
 ·Callcentric
| reply to buckeyered
Re: Power failure
There's much more to cable than - uh - cable. Most cable systems are actually hybrid fiber-coaxial systems that combine optical fiber and, in some cases, microwave radio with coax. All three of these technologies require power to operate. As mentioned above, fiber requires electricity for the fiber optic-to-coax nodes, microwave radio requires power for the transmitters and receivers, and coaxial cable requires electricity for the bi-directional amplifiers.
Due to the sheer number of systems, it is often impractical to provide UPS's to everything. However, I'm told this is changing with the deployment of more cable-based phone systems since people expect their phones will always work. Also, it is challenging to maintain and repair all of this electronics because it is literally scattered around the hinterland. Truly, it's amazing that most systems work as well as they do.
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