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Energy Rationing and Mobile Networks

ssg9

Pro Member
A Reuters "exclusive" was trending on Hacker News. Some of you might find it interesting:

- Exclusive: Europe braces for mobile network blackouts (mirror)

The part about mobile networks:



Telecom gear makers Nokia (NOKIA.HE) and Ericsson (ERICb.ST) are working with mobile operators to mitigate the impact of a power shortage, three sources familiar with the matter said.

Both companies declined to comment.

The European telecom operators must review their networks to reduce extra power usage and modernise their equipment by using more power efficient radio designs, the four telecom executives said.

To save power, telecom companies are using software to optimise traffic flow, make towers "sleep" when not in use and switch off different spectrum bands, the sources familiar with the matter said.

The telecom operators are also working with national governments to check if plans are in place to maintain critical services.

In Germany, Deutsche Telekom has 33,000 mobile radio sites (towers) and its mobile emergency power systems can only support a small number of them at the same time, a company spokesperson said.

Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE) will use mobile emergency power systems which mainly rely on diesel in the event of prolonged power failures, it said.

France has about 62,000 mobile towers, and the industry will not be able to equip all antennas with new batteries, the FFT's president Liza Bellulo said.

Accustomed to uninterrupted power supply for decades, European countries usually do not have generators backing up power for longer durations.

"We are a bit spoiled maybe in large parts of Europe where electricity is pretty stable and good," a telecom industry executive said. "The investments in the energy storage area have maybe been less than in some other countries."




The plan is to turn off some cell sites and/or some bands if needed.
 
Wont be that bad I'm sure. 🤞
 
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Last edited:
Wont be that bad I'm sure.
one hopes.!
We live in semi rural Essex and recently had a power cut lasting less than 30 minutes. I took the opportunity to check the EE coverage and noticed that the base station serving our area (Band 7) had disappeared and there was only a weak signal on Band 20 from a base staion miles away. Getting a data connection was not possible, I did not try to make a phone call, might have worked falling back to GSM.
 
I had some spare time at the weekend so I've put together a small site to check when blackouts for your area will take place:

https://blackouts.live

Simply enter your postcode and the blackout times will be shown.

By default, the site is set to blackout level 1 (the least severe) - you can choose higher levels of blackouts to see how you will be affected.

Let me know if you have any comments or feature suggestions.
 
I had some spare time at the weekend so I've put together a small site to check when blackouts for your area will take place:

https://blackouts.live

Simply enter your postcode and the blackout times will be shown.

By default, the site is set to blackout level 1 (the least severe) - you can choose higher levels of blackouts to see how you will be affected.

Let me know if you have any comments or feature suggestions.
Very nice, but how have you worked out the periods for the blackouts exactly?
 
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Thanks.

The blackout periods are available in the document "ELECTRICITY SUPPLY EMERGENCY CODE (ESEC)" published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
 
Very nice, but how have you worked out the periods for the blackouts exactly?
Each area is supposed to have a rota with a pre-planned disconnections based on time period of when your block letter will be shut off. A lot of suppliers include your Block Letter on the Electric Bill. Black Belt Barrister has a nice video on it:


I was wanting to work out which block code my local masts where in and include that information on OpenStreetMap, but NIE Networks, won't publish the information and have ignored emails and calls requesting it - https://www.nienetworks.co.uk/power-cuts/emergency-power-cuts
 
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Level 18 is gonna be very steampunk. :)
Certainly will be hard to stay on-line, even with home backup it will all depend on how good operators have planned things, which I hazard to guess that Three have put absolutely no thought into it at all!
 
Certainly will be hard to stay on-line, even with home backup it will all depend on how good operators have planned things, which I hazard to guess that Three have put absolutely no thought into it at all!
I think the mobile networks fall under critical infrastructure.

Now is solar panels worth investigating?
 
I got a feeling if my area get a blackout I will lose 5G last week when my street suffered a power cut the 5G signal disappeared right away only had 1 bar 4G which was the signal strength before the local pow was installed.
 
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