North American Network Operators Group

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Re: MAE-East still no generator

  • From: Alan Hannan
  • Date: Sun Sep 08 00:28:36 1996

  Howdy,

  To stay in the tradition of the NANOG mailing list, I will take
  this subject a bit off topic.  :-)

  The common American household and business operates on Alternating
  Current mainly because of distance.

  Over long distances, Alternating Current loses less energy in
  transferring energy than Direct Current.  For proof, imagine the
  energy actually moving from point a -> point b (as in DC) or
  moving back and forth in millions of sets between points a and b.
  (and not moving as far) (as in AC).

  So, I think it's then important to question why telcos prefer to
  use DC power.  DC power provides a smooth, less dynamic power source
  than does AC.  W/ DC power you receive a constant flow of power,
  where w/ AC, the "sine" wave isn't, and the powered devices
  requires more capacitators and more engineering to use the
  energy.  As well, backing up the equipment at remote (ruralish) 
  facilities is relatively cheaper w/ DC than w/ AC.  

  Now, back to the topic a bit.

  Certainly it would be reprehensible if the MAE-E core
  infrastructure (that which MFS owns/runs) wasn't backed up.
  However, I believe it is.

  I do not believe that it is the responsibility of MFS to provide
  power to individual's equipment that is co-located at the site.  

  So, the question of what's causing the peer drops is interesting,
  and I'll be interested to see if it's MFS's equipment, or common
  oops-es by the neighbors at the colo site.

  Sure would be funny if some forgotten piece of equipment wasn't on
  backup (like Sean's modem, but more mission critical...)

  -alan



.........  Perry E. Metzger is rumored to have said:
] 
] 
] Andrew Partan writes:
] > I was over at MAE-East installing some equipment sometime early
] > this summer & I was talking with some MFS folks.  They were looking
] > at the AC powered gear that I was installing & were wondering why
] > I did not do DC - they said that there was *lots* of DC capacity
] > (all battery backed) at MAE-East.  Last week I was over there again
] > & poked around.  I think that I only saw *two* folks that were
] > using DC - everyone else was on AC.
] > 
] > So what are you using?  AC or DC?  If you are not on DC, I would
] > switch.  Maybe you would have better luck.
] 
] I believe that most of the country switched from direct to alternating
] current late in the last century, and that by now it should be
] expected that most commercial equipment in the world will either
] operate at 120VAC or 220VAC, and not on direct current.
] 
] I realize that the phone world that MFS is part of operates
] differently, but this is networking equipment we are talking about,
] not phone switches, and UPSes are very old tech at this point.
] 
] In other words, its silly for them not to have UPSed AC available.
] 
] Perry
] 

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