Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months • Hacker News Board

Re: Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months

#301

Post by popotamonga » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 11:49 AM UTC

mturmon wrote: post #217

popotamonga wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird its a newish monitor 1 yr, also the pc is connected there and no issue. The one not usual thing is that they are all connected to a tplink powerline. ill try without the powerline.

Note to armchair troubleshooters nearby: It seems to be a passthrough connection from one of these: https://www.tp-link.com/us/home-networking/powerline/tl-pa70... There are two types of fan motors, AC and DC. A lot of small fans would be DC fans, which have their own power supply/converter. Larger ceiling fans are often AC fans. Depending on where you are in the world, one or the other type might be common for some…

Thats the one. Took it out no more blackouts.

Re: Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months

#302

Post by throwanem » Sun, Sep 27, 2020, 1:41 PM UTC

aaronmdjones wrote: post #300

nucleardog wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In North America those are more commonly called a GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupter). They wouldn't trip in this case just by plugging a poorly wired appliance in. They detect an imbalance in current flow between the hot and neutral wires. If they detect more current going out than coming back in, they recognize that the current has found another path (which is bad) and trip. Unless you have a grounded lamp (whi…

An RCD/GFCI would immediately trip if anything past it is bridging ground and neutral. As well as ground to line, or line to neutral of another circuit (on a different RCD), or line to line of another circuit (on a different RCD, in single-phase or multi-phase installations), or neutral to neutral on a different circuit (on different RCDs), etc etc. For example, if someone did indeed have a metal-cased grounded desk…

You're still assuming a ground where none exists, and you also seem to be assuming RCDs in the distribution panel, which is not something I have ever seen in any US residential or commercial installation - I don't think the national code would allow it. The only RCDs you see here are the GFCIs built into outlets. Those are only required in new construction, and then only in kitchens, bathrooms, and other places near water. Hell, I haven't even always lived in places that had circuit breakers instead of Edison-screw fuses, and I'm not all that old.

Thanks to Big Clive, I have a vague but reasonable sense of what UK electrical systems are like. It's not safe, metaphorically or literally, to assume the US is up to the same standard. As you might find out the hard way if you did make such an assumption, North American electrical systems in a lot of ways are shockingly poor.

Re: Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months

#303

Post by milankragujevic » Sun, Sep 27, 2020, 4:16 PM UTC

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #290

milankragujevic wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: disregard my comment, I mistook PTP to mean Ethernet while in reality it's Point to point Fiber. In any case my point about noise still stands. But PTP Fiber is really rare in the world, given how many people are stuck on coax. Yes, with FTTH (or FTTP) I meant GPON. Refarding PTP, do you mean a residential ethernet network? (Technically FTTB, copper / ethernet to the premises) Branding anything other than FTTH…

I meant a residential fiber network, where the fiber really goes into the home, and the topology of that network is point-to-point. As in from some POP(point-of-presence) from ISP into the home, not over shared channels like in GPON. My ISP is rolling that out, though with delays. They are a spin-off of a public utility. Already rolled out the CPE looks like this: https://genexis.eu/product/fibertwist/ and in the use…

Understood. Sorry for the confusion.

RE: PPPoE - in general most AAA systems already work with PPP and since ISPs generally have to support legacy infrastructure too, and multiple access technologies, they "force" all users to connect with PPPoE for billing and data collection for identification.

For example, a national ISP in my country uses PPP for xDSL (which is a dedicated medium) and GPON (which is a shared medium, however the authorization and speed limiting is done by the ONT S/N), none of which "need it". You can also mix GPON and DSL logins and it will work, even between users.

The only logical reason for this, from what I can see, is that they are forced to sell access to their infrastructure (being an ILEC) to other ISPs, so they use PPP to route traffic from users of other ISPs from the BRAS to the corresponding network gateway using a MPLS tunnel.

For business fiber, not based on xPON, there is no requirement for a PPP session, and instead you get assigned an IP address range that you router should use, and the fiber is connected with a SFP+ module to your router. On the ISP's side, your "port" is limited to accessing their intranet for management and remote control, and your assigned IP address range.

Re: Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months

#304

Post by aaronmdjones » Mon, Sep 28, 2020, 2:23 AM UTC

throwanem wrote: post #302

aaronmdjones wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An RCD/GFCI would immediately trip if anything past it is bridging ground and neutral. As well as ground to line, or line to neutral of another circuit (on a different RCD), or line to line of another circuit (on a different RCD, in single-phase or multi-phase installations), or neutral to neutral on a different circuit (on different RCDs), etc etc. For example, if someone did indeed have a metal-cased grounded desk…

You're still assuming a ground where none exists, and you also seem to be assuming RCDs in the distribution panel, which is not something I have ever seen in any US residential or commercial installation - I don't think the national code would allow it. The only RCDs you see here are the GFCIs built into outlets. Those are only required in new construction, and then only in kitchens, bathrooms, and other places near…

The US National Electric Code does allow for GFCIs (RCDs) and AFCIs (AFDDs) in breaker panels -- they are sometimes double-width devices (especially if they are double-pole isolators) which is why they're not commonly used that way, but single-width versions are available.

You can also get circuit breakers with integrated GFCIs (which is what we call RCBOs); those are usually double-width devices in the US (For example, with the Siemens "QF" product range [1]), however, again, single-width versions are available (For example, with the Square D "QO" product range [2]).

Because a GFCI needs to measure current flowing in both directions, it has an inherent need for a neutral connection too. This is what the flying lead is for. The circuit neutral would be terminated into the GFCI instead of the panel neutral bar; the flying lead is terminated into the panel neutral instead.

I'm also not assuming a ground; a neutral-bonded lamp body sitting on a conductive surface which is in contact with the mass of the earth would still be enough to immediately trip a GFCI under the same circumstances as my previous post, regardless of whether someone is touching it or not, and if it is turned on or not (assuming the switch is in the line conductor).

EDIT: However, this all goes to crap if the lamp only has a 2-prong plug, yes.

I agree that some aspects of US electrical installations are exceedingly bad compared to over here. For example, it is stupidly easy to shock yourself removing a live socket from a wall over there, compared to it being a basic impossibility over here -- yes, I know, safe isolation and all that, but name me a sparky that hasn't done this at least once.

[1] https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-b8b6a/images/stencil/1280x12... [2] https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-b8b6a/images/stencil/1280x12...