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[OK] How much of Cox's network is on UPS power?Lately there have been quite a few momentary power outages ( 3 seconds) in the neighborhood. In the past, I would rarely lose connectivity as my home office is on a UPS that can carry the load for nearly an hour, but in the past few weeks there have been 3 or 4 really short power outages. These always result in the modem losing connectivity almost instantly.
Historically, I've never lost connectivity during power outages unless they were extremely long.
Also somewhat related to this, when the modem does lose connectivity and reboots, it will only bond back to 1 channel (amber DS lite) instead of 3. The only way to get it to bond to 3 like normal is a power cycle. Is this by design for some reason, or is there another way around this? |
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when my area use to have power outages my cable modem would always go into battery mode but the internet would be down during these times the only service that would work was of course the phone service but only on a corded phone cordless phones will not work since they require power to send the wireless signal from the base station (the charging dock) to the phone |
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I am in Mustang and have not had this problem. When the power has blinked I have not had any problems. I know where I lived they installed a NG generator. The previous ice storm outage, I would have to call them up and complain that their gas generator had run out of gas.
There are cordless phones that have a battery in the base. My Panasonic will power the base from the hand set for a couple of hours. I have 7 hand sets so I could just keep moving them around. I also have my base set on the same UPS as my computer. |
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There's no generator in the area that I am aware of, but I don't know how much of the network is fed via standard OGE/OEC power or if cable has something similar to PoE for powering certain nodes/areas.
I'm thinking the power outages are fairly local, if they were bigger it would reach into Cox's larger facilities, which should have a generator. But at the neighborhood level, how are they fed - and should I expect to lose it every time power flickers, or is this a problem?
I don't have Cox phone, just internet only. |
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said by bchandler02:TOGE/OEC power or if cable has something similar to PoE for powering certain nodes/areas.
Cable networks have active elements (nodes and amps) that require power. This is accomplished by power supplies in the network that receive electricity from the electrical grid and convert this to DC which is then transmitted on the cable plant and normally filtered out at the taps so you don't the voltage on the drop to your house nearly all cable companies use batteries to provide uninterrupted power as required to have their networks considered lifeline for telephone services...you can drive around and find the power supplies and batteries pretty easily. They will be in cabinets on concrete pads or on telephone poles like this |
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So is it safe to assume that a momentary outage should NOT be causing a drop, and Cox probably has a malfunctioning UPS somewhere up the line from me (but probably not too terribly far away)? |
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said by bchandler02:So is it safe to assume that a momentary outage should NOT be causing a drop, and Cox probably has a malfunctioning UPS somewhere up the line from me (but probably not too terribly far away)? correct, a momentary loss in power should not cause a loss of the cable network that said, Cox has fairly sophisticated monitoring for it's power supplies so it would be pretty unlikely for them to have one go hinky without knowing about it |
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Ok, thanks. I'm going to wait until I have another momentary outage (been stable yesterday and today), if it causes another drop I'll PM CT1 since I'm sure he will understand the problem much easier than the local call center.
Thanks for the info, was educational to learn about the cable version of PoE. |
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m85 to bbeesley
Anon
2012-Feb-22 10:00 pm
to bbeesley
Having exprienced Irene and the Oct 28th snowstorm, both times cable, phone and internet were available for somewhere between 8-10 hours IIRC after commercial power was lost. Cox placed generators out at the poles the the nodes on them to restore service. After Irene service was only down for a few hours but it took four days to repair the damage and get generators out after the October storm.
AT&T also deployed generators for their network during the storm. |
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I took a quick pic of an open power supply at the NCTC show in Austin this week so folks could see what was in those boxes hanging on the poles (sorry it's so blurry..the lighting was pretty low in the convention room and I used my phone instead of my camera) The upper section is the power supply itself - this one is showing a 90VDC output. The little black box with the green LED display on the right is a telemetry unit that allows the operator to remotely monitor the power supply and battery status The batteries can be clearly seen in the lower tray. This is what provides the standby power in the event of an outage These units may or may not be backed up with generators powered by natural gas and where they aren't there are generally disaster plans in place to deploy portable generators in the event of a long-term power outage. |
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CableToolPoorly Representing MYSELF. Premium Member join:2004-11-12 |
to bchandler02
To add to a more then adequate response and as was eluded to- They also have status monitoring in them. A small modem that sends back voltage and standby status back.
So if there is a PS in your area that is not kicking on they most likely are aware of it. Its not uncommon in a quick power burst to loose SOME connectivity if the PS does switch its power source.
Most all areas have a PS maintenance program where as these are checked annually and rolled on for most alarms that are triggered indicating a possible malfunction. Critical devices in this day and age with Phone Service and SLAs. |
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dgsfkw to bbeesley
Anon
2012-Feb-29 12:17 am
to bbeesley
I would guess 8 hours is the target. This is probably more to support VOIP - cable phone service than to support the watching of MTV for 8 hours if the power fails.
Telcos have government mandates to give 8 hours for 911 support. So if Cox wants to play in that market they have to match such a requirement with cable. |
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to bchandler02
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