5 ms·

The less reliable the grid, the more backup power is planned into infrastructure like cell towers. In Europe the grid has historically been quite reliable, so

The less reliable the grid, the more backup power is planned into infrastructure like cell towers. In Europe the grid has historically been quite reliable, so backup options are likely more limited at these sites.

Semaphor 4y ago
My wife is from SA. There, every supermarket and even smaller stores have generators because blackouts are frequent. A few years ago, we had a bigger 6h or so power outage, all the stores had to throw tons of products away because there was literally no redundant power supply at all. It was my 2nd power outage in Germany in over 30 years.
jefftk 4y ago
Yes: this is the same as when an inch of snow shuts down a warm city and people from cold cities say "we handle worse storms several times a month". People engineer for likely conditions, and those aren't the same everywhere.
- horsawlarway 4y ago
  Yup. And in most cases it simply doesn't make sense to spend the capital on the preparations. Ex: Atlanta gets roughly 2 inches of snow a year (usually one or two minor snowfalls) and it's far cheaper to simply shut down for a day when it happens than it is to have the infrastructure in place to handle staying open. Every 10 years or so we'll get a big snow, and be down for a week (ex: 2014) and people will freak out - but on the whole, still much cheaper to have that downtime than to be exorbitantly over-prepared for situations that are rare and not disastrous. I suspect this will be the case for the mobile outage here - on the whole, the circumstances causing the outage (lack of power) is likely not recurring, and the costs of weathering this outage with existing infra is much more favorable than being over-prepared for blackout conditions which are rare.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    As someone who lived there for awhile, was going to mention Atlanta too. And I'd assume similar latitude cities like Birmingham, Charlotte, and Dallas? Cities operate with limited budgets. It does not make financial sense to prepare for some relatively rare events, versus allocating that money to better prepare for likely events. If Atlanta had a fleet of snowplows, they'd be unused 75% of winters and used for only a couple days in 20%. Bad investment.
- DoughnutHole 4y ago
  Hot weather too - runways were melting in the UK this year in what would be regular summer temperatures in Arizona. The engineers weren't feckless - few people plan for conditions that literally haven't happened once in 200 years of records.

Semaphor 4y ago

My wife is from SA. There, every supermarket and even smaller stores have generators because blackouts are frequent. A few years ago, we had a bigger 6h or so power outage, all the stores had to throw tons of products away because there was literally no redundant power supply at all. It was my 2nd power outage in Germany in over 30 years.

jefftk 4y ago

Yes: this is the same as when an inch of snow shuts down a warm city and people from cold cities say "we handle worse storms several times a month". People engineer for likely conditions, and those aren't the same everywhere.

horsawlarway 4y ago
Yup. And in most cases it simply doesn't make sense to spend the capital on the preparations. Ex: Atlanta gets roughly 2 inches of snow a year (usually one or two minor snowfalls) and it's far cheaper to simply shut down for a day when it happens than it is to have the infrastructure in place to handle staying open. Every 10 years or so we'll get a big snow, and be down for a week (ex: 2014) and people will freak out - but on the whole, still much cheaper to have that downtime than to be exorbitantly over-prepared for situations that are rare and not disastrous. I suspect this will be the case for the mobile outage here - on the whole, the circumstances causing the outage (lack of power) is likely not recurring, and the costs of weathering this outage with existing infra is much more favorable than being over-prepared for blackout conditions which are rare.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  As someone who lived there for awhile, was going to mention Atlanta too. And I'd assume similar latitude cities like Birmingham, Charlotte, and Dallas? Cities operate with limited budgets. It does not make financial sense to prepare for some relatively rare events, versus allocating that money to better prepare for likely events. If Atlanta had a fleet of snowplows, they'd be unused 75% of winters and used for only a couple days in 20%. Bad investment.
DoughnutHole 4y ago
Hot weather too - runways were melting in the UK this year in what would be regular summer temperatures in Arizona. The engineers weren't feckless - few people plan for conditions that literally haven't happened once in 200 years of records.