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Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

reuters.com

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Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#51

Post by Huh1337 »

leesalminen wrote: post #48
Huh1337 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Of course Ukraine is an independent, sovereign state. Russia wasn't making that demand of Ukraine, per se (AFAICT). The demand was largely on existing NATO / EU member states to actively deny any request from Ukraine to join. And, of course Russia would likely not acquiesce if such a demand were placed on them. I think whether that demand is reasonable or not depends on one's perception. If one is a NATO ally or depe…

Well, as a citizen of one of the former buffer states, I really don't think there's a single bit of reason in that demand. I have the context and perception of living under Russian rule. Russians don't just have buffer states - they plunder them. Tens of millions of people in Ukraine have done nothing to deserve this fate and now that I'm also considered "the West" I won't let them fall into it if I can help it.

Every single nation that ever had something to do with them and was fortunate enough to leave their sphere of influence is trying its hardest to join NATO, isn't that a little telling? Perhaps Russia is not only looking for buffer, but wants more?

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#52

Post by alibert »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #36

I see a lot of confusion in the comments about why cell towers would be impacted. Load shedding in the grid occurs across regions of the grid. The power companies don’t choose which specific sites to cut off. If cellular infrastructure is in part of the grid that gets disconnected, it will go down too (after exhausting its backup supply). The top priority for keeping power on goes to grid segments with life-sustainin…

Indeed, a large part of cell towers are hosted on the rooftop of residential buildings and mostly connected to the same electrical network.

In France, most homes have a smartmeter (called "Linky") and these could be used to have very precise load shedding (they communicate with PLC) but I believe this feature is not available or developed (yet?).

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#53

Post by leesalminen »

gpvos wrote: post #43
leesalminen wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”.

"Now" is actually reasonable. "In the future", not.

One could argue that acquiescing to the bully now will make it harder to push-back in the future. From that perspective, "now" isn't resaonable.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#54

Post by PragmaticPulp »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #45
alex_duf wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In France, the talks about the rolling blackouts were acompanied by assurances that private homes wouldn't be affected, only industries. So they should have some kind of ability to target at least a kind of user. I don't know if cell towers qualify as industry or their own, separate kind. There's also the fact that there has been a massive rollout of connected meters, so, at least in theory, they could target individ…

> So they should have some kind of ability to target at least a kind of user.

Industrial power is easier to separate because it is almost always a separate grid region. There aren’t many houses built up against your local steel mill or refinery.

Cell towers are collocated with residential areas because that’s where the users are. The power for homes and cell towers comes from the same source.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#55

Post by Huh1337 »

pessimizer wrote: post #47
Huh1337 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Make the case that it's unreasonable to not want Soviet nukes in Cuba.

Apples and oranges. US is not and never was plundering Cuba, unlike Russians who plunder every single state in their sphere of influence until nothing is left. This is not about some nukes on Cuba, this is about living like a normal person and not in a corrupt, fascist despotism where you die decades prematurely and nobody cares.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#56

Post by giantg2 »

gpvos wrote: post #41
Kye wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Europe's power systems are anything like those in the US, Russia hopefully wouldn't risk a cascade failure going all the way to Russia with an EMP.

Europe's are actually a bit more robust, like the article says. But still far from invulnerable.

I was thinking more about the electronics associate with the towers and handsets.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#57

Post by beached_whale »

crote wrote: post #30
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?

Canada/US learnt that lesson back in 2003 with the Northeast Blackout. Generators on cell towers where not fueled and some data centre’s caught fire when the cooling went down but the systems didn’t. Lessons where learned. Cell infra is strategic and should not be allowed to go down, everything uses it and people will die if it goes down.

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#58

Post by dijit »

tapland wrote: post #17
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.

In Sweden we haven’t separated their power supply from anything else, so rolling blackouts will kill them as well. And the blackouts are probably coming sooner than a fix can be in place

I actually had a problem with Swedens approach a few years ago.

The Swedish power grid is a single grid and the idea is: all eggs in one basket, but pay close attention to the basket.

Unfortunately when it comes to datacenter designations, two independent power feeds is required for tier 2 and above. Excluding all datacenters in Sweden.

At least some portions of Canada are also excluded because they have rules that say that only hospitals are allowed to have two independent power feeds. So Ubisofts Montreal Datacenter is in the same building as a hospital...

Re: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts

#59

Post by neonsunset »

fsh wrote: post #33
neonsunset wrote: post #10

Imagine using easily expendable and non-renewable resources, subjecting the very processes our civilization is sustained by to a great risk of failure while having an almost inexhaustible source of energy that was invented more than 50 years ago. Surely that would be a madness and no reasonable organization would do this, right?

According to IAEA data, there is considerably more minable coal than uranium on earth (by extractible energy). Current nuclear reactors are not scalable to global energy requirements.

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