Europe braces for mobile network blackouts • Hacker News Board

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#21

Post by Nextgrid » Thu, Sep 29, 2022, 2:33 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #13

maxsilver wrote: post #6

A typical cell tower uses 4kW to 5kW, sometimes less (at least in the states). That's reasonably close to a standard home's central air conditioner, or a home's electric stove/oven/range. I'd be highly surprised if, of all possible things, this is where they want to cut to lower electricity usage.

My understanding is that many have supplemental power options, or at least the ability to be hooked up to a mobile one.

I wouldn't worry about powering the cell tower itself, but more about the backhaul infrastructure that it relies on. In cities it relies on fiber that's often leased from various providers and terminates at datacenters where it shares switching equipment with a lot of other customers of the provider & datacenter, so power can't effectively be segregated. If that datacenter can't be kept powered (and that will require a lot of power), it doesn't matter whether the tower itself remains powered.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#22

Post by gpvos » Thu, Sep 29, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

maxsilver wrote: post #6

A typical cell tower uses 4kW to 5kW, sometimes less (at least in the states). That's reasonably close to a standard home's central air conditioner, or a home's electric stove/oven/range. I'd be highly surprised if, of all possible things, this is where they want to cut to lower electricity usage.

Indeed, not particularly, but they will just lose power together with the buildings around them.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#23

Post by chriscappuccio » Thu, Sep 29, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

Lots of people here seem to echo the idea that there is a way to prioritize cellular towers. That's up to whoever runs then. The power goes off for everyone in the area. They need to have enough batteries and generator capacity. Many sites have no generators and battery capacity will vary. Some carriers try to have a week or two of battery capacity but that isn't practical at small sites. When power starts going off, the towers will be prioritized through alternate power sources maintained by the carriers or their contractors.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#24

Post by PragmaticPulp » Thu, Sep 29, 2022, 2:34 PM UTC

maxsilver wrote: post #6

A typical cell tower uses 4kW to 5kW, sometimes less (at least in the states). That's reasonably close to a standard home's central air conditioner, or a home's electric stove/oven/range. I'd be highly surprised if, of all possible things, this is where they want to cut to lower electricity usage.

Load shedding occurs in larger regions of the grid.

The utilities don’t have the ability to turn specific sites on and off at random throughout the day.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#25

Post by Kye » Thu, Sep 29, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #15

I strongly strongly doubt that critical emergency call infrastructure will be blacked out before literally anything else. Even when massive ice buildup took down a whole region's power grid in my home EU country, mobile cell towers were the first to be kept up and brought online to allow emergency services and citizens to communicate. This feels like a nothing burger from Reuters (which is publishing some seriously d…

The general vibe of quotes from governments/operators in the article is they intend to find ways to keep essential services running in the event outages last longer than a couple of hours.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#26

Post by PragmaticPulp » Thu, Sep 29, 2022, 2:35 PM UTC

doix wrote: post #8

I've been in South Africa for the last month, which has had an energy crisis since around 2007 and somehow they manage to keep mobile networks up during load shedding. There are 2:30 hour (sometimes 4:30 hour) blackouts daily and yet everything seems to keep chugging along. Mobile towers are probably have some of the highest electricity:benefit ratios out there, it would be silly to not prioritize them.

The less reliable the grid, the more backup power is planned into infrastructure like cell towers.

In Europe the grid has historically been quite reliable, so backup options are likely more limited at these sites.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#27

Post by Huh1337 » Thu, Sep 29, 2022, 2:36 PM UTC

leesalminen wrote: post #19

COGlory wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can surely argue that it's not worth the cost in good faith, but there's no way you can describe an invasion and demands of territorial annexation as "reasonable" and still be taken seriously.

I believe the parent was referring to Russia’s demand that the west agree to deny Ukraine membership to NATO and/or EU now and in the future. I’m not an expert on this though, that was just the impression I got. I don’t think anyone could say what’s happened since Feb is “reasonable”.

How is that request in any way reasonable? It's an independent, sovereign state. Would Russia listen to any such requests or deem them reasonable?

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#28

Post by gpvos » Thu, Sep 29, 2022, 2:37 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #15

I strongly strongly doubt that critical emergency call infrastructure will be blacked out before literally anything else. Even when massive ice buildup took down a whole region's power grid in my home EU country, mobile cell towers were the first to be kept up and brought online to allow emergency services and citizens to communicate. This feels like a nothing burger from Reuters (which is publishing some seriously d…

Indeed, they will just black out together with everything else. They are generally not on separate distribution circuits. They do have some limited backup power though.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#29

Post by alex_duf » Thu, Sep 29, 2022, 2:38 PM UTC

maxsilver wrote: post #6

A typical cell tower uses 4kW to 5kW, sometimes less (at least in the states). That's reasonably close to a standard home's central air conditioner, or a home's electric stove/oven/range. I'd be highly surprised if, of all possible things, this is where they want to cut to lower electricity usage.

I think it's more about the cell towers being cut at the same time as their local area.

Where it's easy to anticipate that hospitals/police stations/fire birgades will need a special connection to the grid, it probably was harder 20 years ago to realise the numerous new cell towers also needed to be put on a separate connection.

So they'll get cut at the same time as the companies and the houses in the local area.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#30

Post by crote » Thu, Sep 29, 2022, 2:38 PM UTC

doix wrote: post #8

I've been in South Africa for the last month, which has had an energy crisis since around 2007 and somehow they manage to keep mobile networks up during load shedding. There are 2:30 hour (sometimes 4:30 hour) blackouts daily and yet everything seems to keep chugging along. Mobile towers are probably have some of the highest electricity:benefit ratios out there, it would be silly to not prioritize them.

To be fair, if you experience blackouts that often your infrastructure is probably prepared for it. Most of Europe basically never has blackouts, so why spend money on backup batteries when they will be deprecated before they'll even be used once?