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Think more about centralized ops. Any individual store will of course notice their power has gone out. But what do they do then? Call around to every nearby st

Think more about centralized ops. Any individual store will of course notice their power has gone out. But what do they do then? Call around to every nearby store asking if they still have power, and have space in cold storage? While those stores may well be calling yet other stores? How does that work when there are 6 affected stores and 12 nearby ones that still have power? Maybe 3 of those have lots of cold storage, and another 4 have some but not lots free. A centralized view could easily be worth $1k/month. (and you are very fortunate if your utility reaches out to you in mass outages (>1000 customers), and especially if they do it via API your systems can act on)

therein 2y ago
I mean, your stores certainly must be pinging back HQ. If they stop pinging, something is up. Gotta determine if it is power or connectivity. But the ISP case definitely is a valid case for 1k/month.
kortilla 2y ago
> Think more about centralized ops. Any individual store will of course notice their power has gone out. And those individual stores report to centralized ops. This is a terrible usecase
- chabska 2y ago
  How do those stores report to HQ when they don't have power? Even cell towers could be down if the situation is bad enough.
  - deathanatos 2y ago
    The lack of a signal/data gets investigated, upon which you find out the store has no power.
    - hnaccount_rng 2y ago
      And that's _much_ more expensive than 1k/month. At least if you keep the ability to investigate effectively around all the time.
      - kortilla 2y ago
        No it’s not. This isn’t a developing country. A grocery chain will see maybe one outage in 10 years that is bad enough to take out the store and internet+cell phone networks. Dispatching someone is absolutely more cost effective for these rare occasions.
  - kortilla 2y ago
    A backup battery. If you’re worried about cell phone outages, use Starlink.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]

therein 2y ago

I mean, your stores certainly must be pinging back HQ. If they stop pinging, something is up. Gotta determine if it is power or connectivity. But the ISP case definitely is a valid case for 1k/month.

kortilla 2y ago

> Think more about centralized ops. Any individual store will of course notice their power has gone out. And those individual stores report to centralized ops. This is a terrible usecase

chabska 2y ago
How do those stores report to HQ when they don't have power? Even cell towers could be down if the situation is bad enough.
- deathanatos 2y ago
  The lack of a signal/data gets investigated, upon which you find out the store has no power.
  - hnaccount_rng 2y ago
    And that's _much_ more expensive than 1k/month. At least if you keep the ability to investigate effectively around all the time.
    - kortilla 2y ago
      No it’s not. This isn’t a developing country. A grocery chain will see maybe one outage in 10 years that is bad enough to take out the store and internet+cell phone networks. Dispatching someone is absolutely more cost effective for these rare occasions.
- kortilla 2y ago
  A backup battery. If you’re worried about cell phone outages, use Starlink.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]