by
dane » Thu Jul 09, 2020 11:58 am
The answer varies based upon the product available at your location. A high-level view:
Fusion Broadband+Phone service provides analog voice over copper lines and should operate indefinitely. The data service is xDSL from the central office and requires only that the premise router be powered. A small UPS can provide many hours of runtime, a large one can last a day or two.
Fusion Fiber service provides analog voice via an integrated telephone adaptor in the optical network terminal box at the customer home, which must be connected to power. The data service is also included - but for routing/WiFi, both the optical terminal and router/WiFi premise equipment will require on-site power. Again, a small UPS can be used, or larger one for more duration.
Fusion IP Broadband service provides analog voice via a standalone telephone adaptor, so all network devices on premise (modem/router/gateway, plus analog telephone adaptor) would require backup power on site. For the majority of sites, where the service is vDSL2 from a fiber-fed neighborhood node, that node also must have power. These sites have batteries that last 8-24 hours, but then a small local generator must be deployed. For sites where IP Broadband is delivered over fiber to the home, the central office side has backup power.
But what we saw during prior PSPS events was that it was impossible for AT&T to deploy and maintain generators at many of the remote node sites. As a result, some cabinets went offline during PSPS events. And this was particularly challenging near boundaries of PSPS events, where homes might still have power while their nearby equipment inside a PSPS zone went offline. Comcast also struggled with this, they simply don't own enough generators to power so much equipment, nor could they practially deploy enough to power everything, re-supply them with fuel, etc.
Comcast also made some good points about fire safety: an unattended generator can itself be a fire hazard and requires a huge clear fire-safe paved area around it, and those don't exist. As a result, when generators are needed, they generally use the ones on the utility trucks, and an employee sits in the truck and monitors everything for safety. They can then unplug when batteries are topped up and charge another site, or go obtain fuel for the generator. A single truck can manage a couple of locations like this. But, that won't work when the region is unsafe due to fire evacuation and is impractical on a large regional scale.
There has been a lot of pressure put on communications operators like AT&T and Comcast to expand backup power in their plant in response to the PSPS situation, but personally, I don't think that should be their responsibility. Reliable utility power has been available for decades, and the new normal of preventative shutoffs is a power utility problem, not a communications utility one. If power utilities now cannot provide reliable power, it should be their task to power essential equipment during the PSPS event. In other words, communications utilities should have power inputs on their devices for generator input, and PG&E should be the ones tasked with deploying a fleet of trucks to power essential utility loads when they must shut down their distribution grid.
But from Sonic's perspective, Fiber to the home service shows a unique advantage in this, generally having no active equipment in the outside plant environment.
