Subject: Re: [NEXTEL-1] Just in...

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Dec 2002 15:05:48 -0500

Well, let's ask Rik, R. in the City of Durham (and anyone else in the affected areas) He
runs a pretty tight ship from what I have heard. Maybe he can tell us how P/S did in
general in his area.

The weakest link at any Nextel site is the power. Running BR's at almost their max
stresses Batt/ Gen power (Gen do run out of gas). Remember Timmy only likes to place Gens
at "Key Sites" (your definition of key is as good as mine).

The second weakest link is the T-1, they are at the will of MCI, Williams, Sprint and 20
other carriers.

[email-masked] wrote:

>  Is that a fair comparison (a question, not a statement) as I guess it would be possible
> that if the PS entities in that areas have/had their own systems, wouldn't they face the
> equal possibility of a site being down?  And I don't know if you mean "down" as in the
> tower collapsed, or it has no power.  If the latter, I guess the argument would be that
> Nextel (as well as PS entities) must have backup power at sites.
>
> Alan
>
> In a message dated 12/6/2002 1:51:32 PM Eastern Standard Time, [email-masked]
> writes:
>
>
>
>> Just got an unofficial report from a Nextel employee here in North Carolina
>> that half of the sites in the affected areas were hit and are down...
>>
>> So you wanna Nextel radio for Public Safety?  Wanna discuss it NOW???  ARE
>> WE LISTENING NOWWWWWWWW...
>>
>> Todd Ellis
>> Operations Manager, Telecommunications Division
>> Booth & Associates, Inc., a Utility Services Associates company
>> An Employee-Owned Business
>> 1011 Schaub Drive, Raleigh, NC 27606
>> Phone: (919) 851-8770, ext. 109  Fax:  (919) 859-5918
>> Cellular:  (919) 418-3358  Alpha Pager:  (877) 205-9320
>> E-mail:  [email-masked]
>> Two-way SMS: [email-masked]
>> Web:  www.booth-assoc.com
>> Telecommunications, Transmission & Distribution, System Planning and Special
>> Projects,
>> Mapping and Field Services, Substations & Relaying, Strategic & Financial
>> Services
>
>
>
>
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---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 14:02:05 EST

Is that a fair comparison (a question, not a statement) as I guess it would 
be possible that if the PS entities in that areas have/had their own systems, 
wouldn't they face the equal possibility of a site being down?  And I don't 
know if you mean "down" as in the tower collapsed, or it has no power.  If 
the latter, I guess the argument would be that Nextel (as well as PS 
entities) must have backup power at sites. 

Alan

---

From: "Todd Ellis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 05:56:37 -0500

Alan:

There's actually two answers to the question.  First, public safety and
local utilities (critical infrastructure, rah rah rah) all stayed up -
absolutely no reports of lack of comms during this event.  Why?  Because the
system was designed to withstand loss of mains power and ice on the tower.
As far as I know from talking to past CP&L employees who have worked for me,
all CP&L sites, as an example, have propane-powered generators keeping them
powered when the mains voltage goes from 115 to zero at the speed of light
(the power goes out).  The only downside is that during extended emergencies
the tanks must be refilled, and that requires some advance logistics
planning.  Now - Nextel, who wants to provide public safety comms using
their system, had an unofficial 50% fail rate for lack of adequate power
backup at 50% of their sites in the state - a state so large that it takes
no less than 11 hours by car (not including fuel and humanitarian stops) to
travel from Kitty Hawk on the coast to Cherokee in the mountains.  What do
you tell the small town cops depending on the service?  What do you tell
anyone, for that matter, that the service is unavailable?

In all fairness, Sprint phone POPs were down too when the battery banks
died.  My ex called yesterday once the batteries were getting mains juice
again to tell me that the phones went out by the end of the morning of the
storm (Thursday), and few if any had portable generators in rural NC.

Second - like I harped about during Hurricane Fran - every Tom, Dick, and
Harry Contracting Company is out there clearing limbs and trees.  Everyone
has a Nextel radio (if it works).  What airtime becomes available to public
safety when the system is highly loaded?  Who decides that a dispatcher's
call to send an auxiliary officer to move traffic around a fallen limb is
more important than the call to the contractor to remove the limb?  From the
trenches, I can assure you that the cost of having a separate system for PS
and CI is clearly apparent.

Todd Ellis

  -----Original Message-----
  From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
  Sent: Friday, December 06, 2002 2:02 PM
  To: [email-masked]
  Subject: Re: [NEXTEL-1] Just in...

  Is that a fair comparison (a question, not a statement) as I guess it
would be possible that if the PS entities in that areas have/had their own
systems, wouldn't they face the equal possibility of a site being down?  And
I don't know if you mean "down" as in the tower collapsed, or it has no
power.  If the latter, I guess the argument would be that Nextel (as well as
PS entities) must have backup power at sites.

  Alan

    Just got an unofficial report from a Nextel employee here in North
Carolina
    that half of the sites in the affected areas were hit and are down...

    So you wanna Nextel radio for Public Safety?  Wanna discuss it NOW???
ARE
    WE LISTENING NOWWWWWWWW...

    Todd Ellis
    Telecommunications, Transmission & Distribution, System Planning and
Special
    Projects,
    Mapping and Field Services, Substations & Relaying, Strategic &
Financial
    Services

        Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
              ADVERTISEMENT

---

From: "Paul J Zawada <[email-masked]>" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 08 Dec 2002 02:47:47 -0000

--- In [email-masked], "Todd Ellis" <ellistr@b...> wrote:
> Alan:
> 
> There's actually two answers to the question.  First, public safety
>  and local utilities (critical infrastructure, rah rah rah) all
> stayed up - absolutely no reports of lack of comms during this 
> event.  Why?  Because the system was designed to withstand loss of 
> mains power and ice on the tower. As far as I know from talking to 
> past CP&L employees who have worked for me, all CP&L sites, as an 
> example, have propane-powered generators keeping them powered when 
> the mains voltage goes from 115 to zero at the speed of light
> (the power goes out).  The only downside is that during extended 
> emergencies the tanks must be refilled, and that requires some 
> advance logistics planning.  

At my utility, we size the propane tanks for the standby generators 
at our radio/microwave/fiber sites for a minimum of 1 week of 
continuous runtime, 2 weeks on the mountaintop sites.  In many cases 
we could get by longer than that minimum.  To my knowledge, we've 
never had a site run out of gas.  We also typically over engineer the 
tower to exceed the specs called for that locality by EIA-222.  

--zawada

PS, we're sending 110 of our distribution guys to help out down 
there...  Hope you guys bounce back quick...