[LINK] Battery back-up mandatory for NBN?

Adrian Chadd adrian at creative.net.au
Mon Oct 25 12:32:03 AEDT 2010


On Mon, Oct 25, 2010, Jan Whitaker wrote:

> What we do know is current copper services provide power the end 
> equipment on the analog system so if your street power goes off, you 
> still have a phone. But new end user equipment would not??
> 
> If a mobile phone battery goes dead, it needs a replacement, but if 
> the tower to which it is connecting dies, there is still no service.

This is sounding exactly like the same kinds of silly planning/costing
issues that creep up when developing VoIP solutions.

Old-school:
	* central PABX + central, large scale battery deployment
	* satellite PABX + smaller, satellite battery backups
	* everything gets x hours battery backup
	* periodic PABX battery tests and replacement
	* "PABX Is Expensive!" so money is (hopefully!) spent keeping
	  the failure-mode infrastructure tested and updated.

New-school:
	* (De)centralised VoIP infrastructure
	* All switches, distributed throughout the network, require
	  battery backup
	* .. at ~ 6W for some of the handsets, and > 6W for some of
	  the gigE cisco handsets..
	* Network design typically forgets to separate desktop and
	  VoIP infrastructure (since Cisco/etc sell you unifying them!)
	  and thus everything needs to be backed up.
	* .. so UPSes in every wiring closet? Hah.
	* .. and then even if that's done, small bits tend to be forgotten
	  until the first scheduled test of the failure systems (if they're
	  even performed)
	  : eg, media converters connecting to upstream ISP (eg that box
	    hooking you into Amnet/Optus)
	  : eg, that unknown router acting as a gateway to your DNS
	    infrastructure, which your VoIP infrastructure uses ..

Ah, fun times. As much as I'm glad I'm a spectator here, sometimes I really
would like to be involved in this stuff again.


Adrian




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