{"id":31972,"date":"2022-08-30T00:01:53","date_gmt":"2022-08-29T23:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=31972"},"modified":"2022-12-09T14:09:34","modified_gmt":"2022-12-09T14:09:34","slug":"broadband-isps-and-ofcom-uk-respond-to-winter-blackouts-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2022\/08\/broadband-isps-and-ofcom-uk-respond-to-winter-blackouts-fear.html","title":{"rendered":"Broadband ISPs and Ofcom UK Respond to Winter Blackout Fears"},"content":{"rendered":"

The news media has recently been full of scare stories that warn of electricity “blackouts<\/em>” and “energy rationing<\/em>“, which they claim could potentially last for several days during the depths of winter. But if the worst were to occur, then how would broadband ISPs and mobile operators\u2019 cope. We investigate.<\/p>\n

According to various reports (e.g. Bloomberg<\/a>, The Independent<\/a>), the Government’s “reasonable worst-case scenario<\/em>” under their Emergency Energy Plans<\/strong> could occur if there’s an electricity capacity shortfall, such as one totalling about a sixth of peak demand (even after emergency coal plants have been activated). In theory, this might result in power outages that last several days, possibly during January 2023<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Such an event, reports suggest, might occur if current challenges (e.g. constraints on the supply of gas and storage) were to combine with other problems, such as the risk of reduced electricity imports from Europe (e.g. France and Norway) and below-average temperatures. Some of France’s nuclear power plants are already out of action for various reasons, and the issues around gas supplies should, by now, need no further explanation (gas is also used to create a chunk of our electricity).<\/p>\n

At present, there\u2019s a big question mark over whether the recent reports should be viewed as scaremongering, despite admittedly being based on some very real challenges and problems within the UK and European energy markets. However, the Government’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy<\/a> (BEIS), has been clear that such reports are “wilfully misleading<\/em>” and “not something we expect to happen<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

A BEIS Spokesperson said:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“We are not dependent on Russian energy imports, unlike Europe, with access to our own North Sea gas reserves, steady imports from reliable partners, the second-largest LNG port infrastructure in Europe and a gas supply underpinned by robust legal contracts, meaning households, businesses and industry can be confident they will get the electricity and gas they need.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Equally, energy rationing – if it did occur – is more likely to hit non-essential services first, such as libraries, railway stations and other public buildings (you can of course argue about what is and is not “essential<\/em>“). Nevertheless, few people trust what the government says these days or their often optimistic predictions, and it is thus not unreasonable to explore the question of how the telecoms industry would respond to a major disruption in energy supplies.<\/p>\n

The current situation<\/span><\/h3>\n

Many of those reading this article today will have only ever experience fairly brief, and often more localised, periods of disruption to their gas or electricity supplies (the gas network is normally fairly dependable) – excluding any problems created within the home (tripped fuses etc.). Such outages tend to last for between a few minutes and a few hours, although serious infrastructure damage may last for days or even longer.<\/p>\n

Experiences can also vary, depending upon where you live. For example, the rural home where yours truly used to live typically experienced around 5-6 power outages a year (i.e. those we actually noticed) and they often took longer to resolve (lasting at most for several hours or sometimes 1 day+). By comparison, our current home is in a suburban area, where outages occur maybe once or twice a year and are usually only very brief.<\/p>\n

Short power outages, as well as those that are more localised, are generally a manageable annoyance – we expect them to happen. Most network operators will also have backup generators for their key data and exchange sites. Similarly, you can often find battery or UPS backup systems inside related street cabinets or mast sites for local access connectivity, which will typically last for several hours.<\/p>\n

However, experiences do vary, and we don’t yet have much information on how every single operator is positioned to respond. But, without naming anybody, some networks may not have invested as much time and effort as others into securing resilience within their power supply, which might show up if there were to be a more serious wide-scale disruption to the supply.<\/p>\n

The impact of a major outage<\/span><\/h3>\n

Any major and protracted national or regional disruption to the mains supply would be an altogether different challenge from what the country is familiar with, which is something the United Kingdom hasn’t really experienced since the 1970s. The last time such things occurred also came before the advent of modern broadband internet and mobile services – something we’re now all very dependent upon.<\/p>\n

History shows that countries tend not to be very good at adapting to major risks, until one punches them squarely in the face, which was well illustrated by the prior financial crisis and the recent COVID-19<\/strong> pandemic. The risk is thus that telecoms operators, which have become comfortable with the dependability of key energy supplies, might struggle to respond (i.e. not enough resources to keep everything powered, such as due to a lack of batteries, limited fuel stocks or poorly maintained generators).<\/p>\n

Not to mention that many homeowners may not have analogue phone handsets as a backup or could be using modern full fibre or all-IP based broadband connectivity without a battery backup, which would leave them exposed regardless of whether their network provider is able to stay online. This could create a dangerous situation in some areas (e.g. mobile notspots), due to the loss of access to emergency services<\/strong> (999).<\/p>\n

NOTE:<\/strong> See our article on ‘Solutions for Battery Backup of Fibre Broadband and VoIP Phone<\/strong><\/a>‘ for more info.<\/div>\n

Ofcom<\/a> is at least being mindful of this risk (here<\/a>), even if they don’t seem to be terribly pro-active in tackling it (more on that later). All of this is before we even consider the impact on other things, such as food storage, cooking, heating etc. But our focus on this site is centred around the digital connectivity side.<\/p>\n

What does the industry say?<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

The UK Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA<\/a>) told ISPreview.co.uk that there had been no formal engagement with telecoms operators by the government over the issue of energy rationing. But Mobile UK said that mobile operators were engaging with the Government and the wider energy sector on this, although they had nothing further to add.<\/p>\n

A Spokesperson for the ISPA<\/a> said:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Telecoms is a resilient sector and operators have different kinds of backup systems in place for good business practice or regulatory requirements. Industry will continue to monitor developments in this area.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Spokesperson for the Mobile UK said:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Mobile network infrastructure has built-in resilience to cover temporary power outages with extended backup systems for critical sites, including rapid response teams. The industry is working closely with the Government and the energy sector to explore further measures in the face of changing requirements driven by issues such as climate change.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, sources in a couple of major network operators did suggest that Ofcom<\/a> are looking at the possibility of helping energy providers to prioritise telecoms businesses over other businesses (i.e. quicker repairs) during major disruptions, such as those caused by storms. At present this doesn’t happen and would be hard to do, given how many network operators exist. But in any case, the details are currently vague.<\/p>\n

In keeping with that, some telecoms operators (e.g. BT<\/a> \/ Openreach<\/a>) have already developed a process whereby Distribution Network Operators<\/strong> (DNO) are alerted to power failures at both exchange sites and street cabinets, which could lead to quicker decisions on power restoration.<\/p>\n

Flick over to page 2 of 2 to continue reading..<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ofcom<\/a> themselves say that they regularly engage with the Government and other regulators (e.g. Ofgem) on a range of matters, yet they declined to provide any details of those conversations. But they did highlight a new plan that could improve power resilience, albeit without giving much detail.<\/p>\n

Some of our sources have since indicated that the regulator is allegedly now pushing for all access networks to survive for a minimum of 1 hour for emergency voice calls, which sounds as if it aligns to their home battery requirements for “vulnerable<\/em>” users (e.g. such as those on full fibre FTTP<\/a> lines with only a home phone style service).<\/p>\n

A Spokesperson for Ofcom said:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Under the current regulatory framework guidelines, network operators must take appropriate steps to ensure their networks have power resilience capabilities to deal with power outage events. How and to what extent they do this varies.<\/p>\n

Our work with the telecoms industry, Government and other regulators on what can be learnt following the recent storms has produced an action plan to improve response and resilience in the future. This plan includes work to improve power resilience.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We also asked a wide cross-section of ISPs about the concerns, although some (e.g. Sky Broadband<\/a>, TalkTalk<\/a>, Zen Internet<\/a>) didn’t respond and one major player felt as if it would not be appropriate to comment further, since in their eyes it was a matter of critical national infrastructure and not appropriate for public discussion – an interesting position given how public the concerns have become.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Virgin Media<\/a> and O2<\/a> (VMO2) claim to have robust backup systems in place at key technical sites, which we understand might allow those sites to run for several days without mains power. Finally, BT<\/a> and Openreach<\/a> told us – in a rare joint statement – that they have “robust contingency plans in place<\/em>” for any planned power outages, albeit without giving any details.<\/p>\n

Joint Statement by BT<\/a> and Openreach<\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“We regularly speak with DCMS, Ofcom and other Government Departments about network resilience and we have robust contingency plans in place to protect customers through a range of different situations.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have contingency plans in place to help maintain our fixed (broadband and phone) and mobile networks in the event of planned power outages. We\u2019re also continuing conversations with the power companies to establish strong data sharing processes which help them to restore power in a more timely manner, where necessary.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, given the sensitivity of this topic, we also engaged with a large number of other ISPs and alternative networks in an off-the-record capacity. Many of those players said they have invested a significant amount of money to ensure that their side of the network equation is able to stay afloat during a blackout, often for several hours (4 to 11 hours seems to be a common range), or up to a few short days in some areas – usually using a mix of battery and generator systems.<\/p>\n

The catch is that managing such events during a localised outage is one thing, but extending this to a national scale would quickly become extremely problematic. All of these systems need direct interaction (labour intensive) to keep everything running smoothly (recharging \/ replacing batteries, topping up fuel, managing faults etc.) and there can be a lot of them, which could strain resources to breaking point.<\/p>\n

On top of that a lot of operators have some inter-dependency with other suppliers and you can’t always guarantee that your network supplier is going to the same lengths as you are. One provider highlighted the example of a recent multi-hour power outage, which saw their links to VMO2 vanish immediately, then local 4G<\/a> and 5G<\/a> mobile sites went too (several providers mentioned that mobile networks were often among the first to go down), with Openreach’s street cabinets allegedly also starting to fail after 2-4 hours.<\/p>\n

Speaking of Openreach, one common complaint by providers that used some of their services is that the national incumbent would, many believe, simply declare Matters Beyond Our Reasonable Control<\/strong> (MBORC) during such an event – much as they do after big storms – to cover themselves off in case of compensation claims due to delays or service disruptions etc.<\/p>\n

In others cases operators told us about some simple practical difficulties, such as with sites where there isn’t enough spare space to deploy a larger backup system \/ generator, even when the budget and desire exists to do so (e.g. hilltop sites with a small comms room \/ building). Issues like this can be difficult to rectify, due to the usual challenges with planning, permissions, costs and wayleaves etc.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, it was pointed out that by the time a provider’s backup systems have run out of juice, then customers are usually stuck offline too as they’re often left in a similar boat. Even many of those end-users who do have battery backup solutions at home can only run them for so long before they need to be recharged (i.e. an operator can make a huge effort to stay online, but still have no users to serve).<\/p>\n

On the flip side we have seen a few alternative networks that have become very inventive, such as by using the power stored in Electric Vehicles (EVs) to support network kit during major outages (only certain EV models can share power like this). But once again, doing that for a few localised issues is not the same as dealing with wide-scale rolling national or regional outage.<\/p>\n

“We used an EV to power a cab for 3 weeks when we faced delays with mains power coming in, it worked really well. The batteries kept the cab running while we took the EV away to recharge, which was only needed once every 5-6 days<\/em>,” said the provider.<\/p>\n

Put simply, any major national outage lasting more than a few hours is going to be a problem for more or less everybody, including both network operators and end-users (homes and businesses) alike. The big operators may boast about their resilience and plans, but even they have limits and complex supply chains – where weaknesses may also exist.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, home owners with deeper pockets have the option of investing in their own generators and rechargeable battery power stations (e.g. the units from ALLPOWERS<\/a> and POWEROAK<\/a>), but the expectation from the government and energy sector is that the mains supply should be secure. But admittedly, you might still go bankrupt in paying the extortionate prices for that energy supply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The news media has recently been full of scare stories that warn of electricity “blackouts” and “energy rationing“, which they claim could potentially last for several days during the depths of winter. But if the worst were to occur, then how would broadband ISPs and mobile operators\u2019 cope. We investigate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1,1645],"tags":[58,69,38],"class_list":["post-31972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial_article","category-uk_isp_news","category-key_uk_isp_industry_developments","tag-ispa","tag-bt-openreach","tag-politics"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"yoast_head":"\nBroadband ISPs and Ofcom UK Respond to Winter Blackout Fears - ISPreview UK<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The news media has recently been full of scare stories that warn of electricity "blackouts" and "energy rationing", which they claim could potentially\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2022\/08\/broadband-isps-and-ofcom-uk-respond-to-winter-blackouts-fear.html\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2022\/08\/broadband-isps-and-ofcom-uk-respond-to-winter-blackouts-fear.html\/2\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Broadband ISPs and Ofcom UK Respond to Winter Blackout Fears - 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