FCC Requires Backup Power For 210K Cell Towers

1sockchuck alerts us to an article in Data Center Knowledge that explores ramifications from the FCC's decision a couple of months back to require backup power for cell sites and other parts of the telecom infrastructure. The new rule was prompted by wireless outages during Hurricane Katrina. There are more than 210,000 cell towers in the US, as well as 20,000 telecom central offices that will also need generators or batteries. Municipalities are bracing for disputes as carriers try to add generators or batteries to cell sites on rooftops or water towers. The rules will further boost demand in the market for generators, where there are already lengthy delivery backlogs for some models.

Comments

You mean they didn't before?

[dgatwood]

Yikes!

Re:You mean they didn't before?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cellphones weren't considered vital infrastructure before. And even now it is hard to argue that they can be since you can't always guarantee a usable signal in all locations (which makes it less useful to emergency responders) and since cellphone networks can easily be overwhelmed in emergencies where everybody gets on the phone at once, like during the 9/11 attacks.

At the same time, when cellphones are usable, they can be very helpful. If many of the cell towers didn't fail during Katrina, it would have been much easier to help many of the victims and coordinate the rescue in a more efficient manner.

Re:You mean they didn't before?

[Forge]

I find this whole discusion hilarius.

Here in Jamaica one celphone company spnt a year advertising it's performance during huricane Ivan. What's worse is that the other major competitor had everything. Batterys, Generators etc... The mistake thy made was in the size fuel tanks at each site. They figured a couple days suply would be enogh.

With the number of Cellsites they have , this ment a small army roaming the country with botles of gasoline to keap the network at least partialy running.

And here are you yanks panicking over government esentialy saying to cell companies "Excersize some common sence or we will kick your bots"

Re:You mean they didn't before?

[TooMuchToDo]

Most critical unmanned infrastructure uses natural gas generators onsite, not stored diesel, so they're not going to run out unless the natural gas infrastructure is damaged as well (which is a definite possibility in cases such as Katrina).

Re:You mean they didn't before?

[xaxa]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACCOLC -- The article says that in Britain, the emergency services (or anyone else important, e.g. doctors) can register their phone to be given priority during an emergency. Other users have to take it in turns to use the network.

I don't know if they have backup power though... I've never noticed either my mobile or the land line phone to be down during a power cut, but then there aren't many.

Re:You mean they didn't before?

[monsted]

The only problem with diesel is that it goes bad after a while. We provide emergency power with three V12 diesel engines (providing roughly 300 kW at full capacity), but only keep about four days worth of diesel in the tank so we don't have to replace as much when it degrades. We do have special agreements with the gas companies, being a vital infrastructure site, though.

IANAS (scientist), but i believe it is microbial growth in the fuel that ruins it.

Re:You mean they didn't before?

[SmoothTom]

In the United States that sort of priority exists for hospitals, police, fire, doctors, military, and other "essential" personnel/agencies and is called "essential service." The standard was to have three levels of "essential service" lines: initially all lines would have service, if it got really bad, only the essential service lines would be operational, and as things got even worse it would progressively shut down the lessor priority lines until only the critical public safety lines were left. (In the 30,000 line office I worked in, at worst case only one percent of the lines would be operational - "Essential Service 1A."

Coin phones were essential service: The thought there was that when Hell let out for lunch and only a few phones could be kept working, the public ones would make the most sense to keep going. Now that cellphones have all but wiped out the coin phone, they need to be kept running.

I spent a quarter century working as a tech, engineer, and eventually engineering manager in the old Bell System. Say what you will about old Ma Bell, but she did believe in backups.

The central office I worked at for about 8 years had complete battery backup for over eight hours, and twin diesels (megawatt) with a 30,000 gallon tank to provide backup power. This was an urban central office.

Everything in the Old Bell System constantly ran on battery, and the commercial power coming into the building was used to keep those batteries charged. When we lost power there wasn't even a "click" on the line, because there was no switching to backup. All that happened is the batteries were no longer being charged.

If the power remained out for thirty seconds the big diesels started up and took over charging the batteries three minutes later.

Some of our more "inaccessible" microwave towers ("Tieton" in the Cascade mountains comes to mind) had fuel for 30 days... "Just in case."

Should cell towers have backup power? Hell yes! Should the equipment huts out in the middle (or ends) of the cable runs have emergency power? Of course!

In the days when every phone was tied to a central office by a long, thin, copper wire, every phone was directly powered by the central office over that wire. Now days that just isn't so.

EVERY commercially provided communication system should have backup for commercial power such that it can hang on for at least four hours on battery, longer on a generator.

--
Tomas

That's alright, I know a guy

[Smordnys s'regrepsA]

I know a guy, he can get you all the batteries you want, alike the brade of your choice, at 1/5 the price!

At last

[weorthe]

Millions of people will be able to call each other to ask "is your power out too?"

Re:At last

[Kent Recal]

I usually just say "Yes, and the phone system is down, too. We're working on it, can you get back to me later?".
Usually they just say ok and hang up, without even noticing...

Re:At last

[jamesh]

Not quite as silly as you might think. In rural locations, it is quite possible that the power failure is very local (eg a possum climbed up the pole the night before and cooked a fuse (and itself)), and the power company won't know about it unless you tell them. Phoning up a neighbor is a reasonable thing to do in that case.

This used to happen all the time at my mums place. The outage would affect her and the weekend house across the road (who would most likely be away). The neighbor up the hill would be a good indicator to it being a possum induced fuse failure or something more widespread.

Ditto for a failure in your fusebox. If everyone else has power and you don't, there isn't much use calling the power company... I know most people reading this would have a tripped breaker fixed in a few seconds, but maybe your grandmother wouldn't know how to, and in fact she might still have fuse wire instead of a resettable breaker.

Even for the mail server case, a user in a remote branch who hasn't received any email all morning would probably ask if the server was down before bothering you with their specific issue. Of course a good helpdesk would put up a recorded message in that case eg 'We are currently experiencing problems with our email server, we expect the problem to be fixed in xxx minutes'.

Still have a problem

[ninjapiratemonkey]

The backup generators will probably not be very effective in preventing outages during natural disasters. Consider New Orleans: how many of generators can work while submerged underwater? Or California, where should an earthquake knock out the original power to a tower, it is just as likely to knock out the generator.

Re:Still have a problem

[techno-vampire]

Or California, where should an earthquake knock out the original power to a tower, it is just as likely to knock out the generator.

Not so. That all depends on where the damage is. If it's at, or fairly near the tower, quite possibly. If the power's out because a power line was dropped by the temblor, there's a good chance that the cell tower and any generator are just fine. I remember after the Northridge Quake there were major power outages, but the equipment worked just fine as soon as the power was back. As far as floods go, there's no reason not to install them in waterproof rooms to make sure they're OK even if that room's under water.

Re:Still have a problem

[flyingfsck]

Well duh, how many US cities are built under sea level?

New Orleans should be used as a land fill, till it is sufficiently raised to be viable again.

Re:Still have a problem

[mcrbids]

The backup generators will probably not be very effective in preventing outages during natural disasters. Consider New Orleans: how many of generators can work while submerged underwater? Or California, where should an earthquake knock out the original power to a tower, it is just as likely to knock out the generator.

Consider... Backup power good for just 72 hours, (batteries, etc) and connections by directional microwave. (common) Most disasters are short-lived events. It only takes one cell tower to provide communication coverage for a few square miles. Imagine what having such a system, even in NOLA, could do. That's 3 days of backup power, providing much-needed information to emergency first-responders and/or military response units.

That's a big, big, big deal.

Oh, and your California example is just silly. You mean, that an earthquake is just as likely to destroy a pack of batteries in a shielded metal box as it is to topple any of the thousands of power line towers (think tall, spindly,) or trees near power lines? That's ridiculous, and I'm surprised you posted it.

What, for me, is surprising is that this wasn't already the case. This strikes me as so fundamental and so basic, and shows just how much profiteering is going on in the cellular industry. Despite having infrastructure investment costs orders of magnitude cheaper than copper, and a less-than-complete requirement for cellular coverage, (Can you hear me now, anyone?) I pay MORE for cellular than I do for land lines? That's just absurd...

Re:Still have a problem

[techno-vampire]

That's ridiculous, and I'm surprised you posted it.

You must be new here.

Solar

[proudfoot]

Maybe self powering solar paneled towers might be better. You'd be helping the environment as well as providing backup. And the height of these towers are perfect for a wind turbine + battery installation as well.
Even if it's not perfectly reliable, such a tower could be connected to the grid, and in the event of emergency, it'll be at the very least, intermittent,which is enough for some traffic to flow out for a very long time. With a battery/generator, you'd only have power, while reliable, for a limited amount of time.

Re:Solar

[Dahamma]

Right, I'm sure all those churches, schools, etc that agreed (with compensation, of course) to put a cleverly inconspicuous cell tower in their steeples and flag poles are going to love 1000 sq feet of solar panels, or a giant wind turbine in the middle of town.

Though as the article mentions, it's not like they are going to allow a big generator and battery, either...

This was a reason I still have a landline....

[ip_freely_2000]

During the east coast power failure a couple of years back, cell phones were useless because the towers were dead. Landlines worked just fine. I've always felt that the cell companies weren't doing enough to build out their infrastructure to support big events. They'd just have enough in place to provide average service.

Ma Bell and the landline service has been built out for generations and it shows.

Disaster response?

[brownsteve]

I am a ham radio operator and concern myself with disaster preparedness. With POTS (plain old telephone system) everyone is guaranteed their own connection, complete with line backup power so you can use the phone even if the power's out. Sometimes the switches overload and "all circuits are busy" but in most situations it's worked pretty well for the last century.

I worry about the trend to move to cell phones. We rely on both our cell phone's battery and the cell tower to stay powered. We also rely on available frequencies to use the tower. In Katrina and recently the San Diego fires, everyone immediately got on their cell phones and jammed all of the towers. Is there enough redundancy, power, and capacity to handle the next disaster? I don't think we should wait for the next hurricane to prove if cell towers can handle an emergency.

I am in a Outage RIGHT NOW with NO Cell Service!

[Zymergy]

I am currently in a power outage with NO Cellular Service (of any type)! This actually *sucks* and is inexcusable (considering what I pay!)
Those Damn Ice Storms here in the Central US (today and yesterday). (Generators/UPS are so so nice!)
Had Cell Service (with AT&T/Cingular) for about 3 hours following the outage (currently the largest single outage in my state's history)... but apparently the cell-site UPS batteries drained and the tower site did not have a generator...
I am going to ask for a prorated refund for my service plan (and they will legally HAVE TO give me that discount for my contracted service being out).
If EVERYONE called up their service providers and asked specifically for their prorated discount for service being out (on that given day)... I bet they would invest in UPS/Generator combos at the cell tower sites... -Z

Thief Opportunity

[JavaManJim]

EASY PICKINGS? In Texas and the nearby states like OK, KS, NM, etc, there are zillions of cell towers in the middle of nowhere. What an opportunity for thieves if these all had little generators nearby. I hope a better paradigm that what I describe is used.

NEW CASH COW? Its bad enough in Dallas where miles lights were out along the divided highways in the Summer of 2006 because thieves pulled out the connecting. This was bad in the summer of 2006 and its better now since openings have been welded shut. I can see generators being the new cash cow for thieves.

Thanks
Jim

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

24 hours is not enough

[EmbeddedJanitor]

A generator is far less likely to get knocked out that power lines. Consider how many points of failure there are in grid-provided power.

24 hours is sufficent to cover for brief, minor outages. It is not enough to cover for anything close to a natural disaster where many sites lose power and there are not enough resources to fix them all in 24 hours.

Here in New Zealand, all our telecom has 24 hour battery backup but it is sized "just right". Last year we lost power for approx 40 hours due to a severe snow storm. The phones lasted for appeox 25 hours.

Re:ambient power

[inKubus]

So you're saying for a worst case situation, where the batteries die, the generators are out of fuel, everything is down--and this solar panel or whatever sits there all day gathering sun and then at a predetermined time it runs the tower for 30 minutes so people can text their parents or whatever. Not bad idea, it would be extremely cheap to implement, and in the worst case scenario, it would continue to allow some communications. Coupled with fuel cell or hand-crank power for the cell phones themselves you could have a fairly reliable temporary 30 minute-per-day communication service.

Re:I am in a Outage RIGHT NOW with NO Cell Service

[Ksevio]

You're in a power outage posting to slashdot? Do you have a backup satalite link and generator just in case you lose internet for a few hours?

Re:Solar and Wind Turbine

[Tisha_AH]

To provide solar power to a cell site would require several hundred square feet of space to mount the panels. Sizing a solar power system for infrastructure requires planning for when the amount of sun is at the minimum (approx 2 hours during wintertime at northern latitudes). A aolar system must put a full charge on the battery system to account for charging losses, battery inefficiency, and the continual demand of the load. To match up to a solar power system you need a very significant battery string (when I do system calculations I assume that the system can go for three days without sun). Mounting a wind turbine on a cell tower is problematic too. An antenna structure has a loading (ANSI 222 (f or g)) that has to account for ice, maximum wind and the surface area of the tower, feedline, antennas, etc... A wind turbine adds ALOT of loading to a structure. I suspect that 90% of the cell towers out there right now could not pass the structural analysis under ANSI.

Whine, Whine, Whine...

[T_O_M]

..." saying it will cost the industry hundreds of millions of dollars to implement the new rules"

Aww,,, Sniff, sniff. I co-manage 5 remote 2-way radio sites and, due to increased power needs, we have to upgrade the backup generator at one of our sites. Our primary electrical contractor quoted $38,000 for a COMPLETE installation: 35KW generator, transfer switch and installation.
And that's for ONE generator. The cellular folks will be buying them by the trainload and should be able to weasel a significant discount.

..." it will be "very difficult" for cellular operators and tower companies to meet the new FCC backup power rule. "It will take a lot of cooperation and innovation,"...
More crap! The electrical connections are the simplest part of the installation. Our contractor installs full-site transfer switches. They connect between the power meter and the disconnect switch or main fuse box. Two electricians do that part in under a day. The generator itself, OTOH, can take up to a week depending if there is a concrete base to be poured, fuel tank and EPA issues. Still, there's nothing new enough here to require "innovation".

Re:Why is it up to the FCC?

[T_O_M]

Because the Communications Act of 1934 (and as ammended) requires the FCC to regulate telephone companies as part of Interstate Commerce.
Also because cell phones use radio frequencies, also regulated by the FCC.

Re:power isn't the only problem

[TooMuchToDo]

GSM does allow you to prioritize emergency traffic:

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:cwTrqX9BMl8J:www.cse.umkc.edu/~beardc/WorkSummary.pdf+GSM+emergency+priority+traffic&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Wireless Priority Services
- Became a high priority after September 11, 2001.
Extension of the U.S. wireline GETS system that had been around for many years.
Used the same call queuing approach.
Only available from GSM providers
- Only GSM has priority call identifiers.

Katrina

[tsotha]

Regarding hurricane Katrina:

I work for a large cell carrier. We had backup power to every single cell in the area. In fact, after the hurricane we were doing pretty well, though some of the towers were taken out by debris. Only a couple were actually submerged. We lost a few trunk lines, but for the most part the system was working.

The problem was we didn't have any way to get gas to the generators. The roads were impassible, and based on news reports we were reluctant to send crews in to the sites we could reach for security reasons. So after a couple days the cell sites started going offline one at a time as the generators ran out of power.

As far as I know every one of our sites, in the entire country, already has a couple days worth of backup power.

There is only one real solution for this.

[F34nor]

Electromechanical Batteries or EMB or Flywheel Batteries by their old name. These have the highest power density of any energy storage system. They are so reliable they can be buried or sent into space. They can hole huge amounts of power. They can be recharged very quickly. They do not burst into fire. They are not hazardous.

Specific Power EMB (5-10 kW/kg) Lead Acid (0.1-0.5 kW/kg)
Energy Recovery EMB (90%-95%) Lead Acid (60%-70%)
Specific Energy EMB (100 Wh/kg) Lead Acid (30-35 Wh/kg)
Service Lifetime EMB (>10 years) Lead Acid (3-5 years)
Self Discharge Time EMB (Weeks to months) Lead Acid (variable)
Hazardous Chemicals EMB (none) Lead Acid (Lead, Sulfur, & Acid)
"A new look at an Old Idea the Electromechanical Battery" Science and Technology Review April 1996 by
Dangerous EMB (possibly in massive physical impact) Lead Acid (High fire danger)

Caterpillar and Beacon power already sell off the shelf UPS based on EMB for anything up to a whole grid substation. These are the answer to balancing the output of solar and wind power as well, far better than ice batteries or lead acid. These are the answer to solving our reliability problems with the national power grid (if each substation could self power for even a few 1/10s of a second you can reroute the grid. In fact these are even a possible answer to batteries for cars thanks to new fiber based flywheels instead of steel. There is literally no sound reason to use Lead acid to backup a data center, a telephone switch, or a cell tower anymore.

The FCC should demand that the power backup meets a certain level of reliability and power density within a top percentile of the most cost effective solution so that people don't use old outdated technology just because it is a system that they are accustomed to.