On Friday, 3 August 2018 09:48:47 UTC+1, Dave Liquorice wrote:
Hopefully one of the things that will come out locally is some form
of "register" (probably have to be voluntary to be on it) of who
lives where and maybe if they have any "special needs".

The combination of BT's directory database and the national address gazetteer (which I think has geodata) should already provide the first.

BT also has a register for free priority fault repair (which requires a medical letter or similar), and the energy companies all have vulnerable customer databases.

Owain

On Fri, 03 Aug 2018 10:17:43 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:

snip

Chinooks are
*very* loud and at that sort of distance impossible to ignore, if
only beacasue the windows will be threatening to come in on each
WHOP.

I always wanted to have a ride in a 'Big windy' and daughter looked
into it for a surprise 60th treat for me.

Apparently the only way was to sign me up for one of the services and
I was too old. ;-(

In lieu of that she booked me (and a friend of hers) one of those 10
min trips in a JetRanger but I gave it to her as she would be able to
enjoy the experience and memory longer than I (I didn't really want to
have ride in 'a helicopter', just a Chinook).

I happily did the Rally Experience she also got me though. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
idual.net...
On Thu, 2 Aug 2018 23:34:48 +0100, Steve Walker wrote:

That won't be of much use to someone with a health problem who
wakes
up one morning and finds that the power went off 5 hours ago; or
for
the able bodied who similarly find that power has been off for
some
time and they are isolated due to deep snow - as happened to many

people recently!

Sure, but the later don t need to call anyone because there is
nothing anyone can do about that.

If our power is off I call the DNO, we are the only customer on the
end of about 1/4 mile of, fused, single phase 11 kV. If that section
has failed or the fuse(s) blown they won't know. If they don't know,
they can't fix it...

So anyone in that unusual situation should ensure that they have
some way of telling them about that, like having a mobile phone.

Makes no sense to keep maintaining the entire dinosaur pots/pstn
system and all the exchanges in the country just so the very few in
that situation can tell those who need to know about that situation.

And don't try running the line about those who have no mobile
service. Any well organised operation has a number of COWs,
Cell on Wheels, which are a mobile base on a trailer with its
own generator which the Chinook can put anywhere that's useful.

That's how the scandinavians do it and they have
that situation a lot more often than you lot do.

It was bad enough that army helicopters were dropping supplies -
that's not going to happen if no-one knows that they are stuck there
without power and quite possibly without heating because of it.

It would have been better if the Chinook had actaully dropped
the supplies at the many places that where still cut off after 7
days, rather than at the village halls, or if they had to drop at
the village halls have some control on who got the supplies...

Trouble is that its impossible to know who needs supplies
and what they need with those still cut off after 7 days.

Its just not feasible to land the Chinook at each of those
places and walk over and ask them, a Chinook is a ****ing
great chopper that isnt practical to do that with.

The villagers could get out by 4x4 from day 2 and you
could get off The Moor on day 3 (not that it did you
any good as all the supermarkets had had the bread,
milk, and fresh veg shelves strippedby the panic buyers).

Anyone in that situation who doesn't have adequate
supplies of the essentials like water and dry food and
some way to cook like even a camping gas stove is a fool.

I know some one who was getting low on fire wood so when the
Chinook flew past decided to go down to the village and see what
was available. To do that he had to go to town and back out as the
short way was still blocked. By the time he got there, nothing was left...

But it appears that no one who needed to know knew which of the
scattered properties where occupied. Mind you if you have Chinook as
your delivery method, you just need to fly slowly past places at a
couple of hundred feet and the people will emerge. Chinooks are
*very* loud and at that sort of distance impossible to ignore, if only
beacasue the windows will be threatening to come in on each WHOP.

But that wont work if the occupant is disabled and can't get their
wheel chair out.

What makes a lot more sense is to use the mobile system to
tell someone you have a problem and have the Chinook drop
a COW in if there is a problem with mobile coverage there.

We have a system which allows broadcasts of texts to
all mobiles in an area so everyone can be told that the
chinook is available to deliver what they say they need.

We use that system for bushfires and floods, but it works
just as well with the result of blizzards.

On 03/08/2018 01:00, Rod Speed wrote:


"Steve Walker" wrote in message
news
On 02/08/2018 23:25, Rod Speed wrote:


"Steve Walker" wrote in message
news On 02/08/2018 20:22, Theo wrote:
Steve Walker wrote:
Assuming that both the VOIP phone and router need to be powered to
make
calls, how are they getting around this? Especially when a severe
weather event could take power out to isolated houses or whole
villages
for days, in conditions where the residents can't travel to get help.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/consultatio...ions-power-cut

summary
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/...gency-services



They seem to be proposing 1 hour backup, but only for those with
pre-exisiting risk due to health problems. That won't be of much use
to someone with a health problem who wakes up one morning and finds
that the power went off 5 hours ago; or for the able bodied who
similarly find that power has been off for some time and they are
isolated due to deep snow - as happened to many people recently!

Sure, but the later dont need to call anyone because
there is nothing anyone can do about that.

It was bad enough that army helicopters were dropping supplies -

So those they dropped the supplys to could
obviously communicate the need for those.

Yes, because it has been a requirement for phones to still work when the
mains power fails. Which is the whole point of what I have been saying
from the start! The exchange has large batteries and an auto-start
generator to maintain the system - fibre cannot power the phone in
someone's house!

that's not going to happen if no-one knows that they are stuck there
without power

If you're in that situation, you obviously need a mobile

And as I have said earlier, many mobile base stations are NOT battery
backed. Even if they are, there are many blackspots with no signal.

and quite possibly without heating because of it.

In that case you can obviously get real radical and
go to bed if its cold enough to be a health problem.

It's rapidly going to do that with no heating at all, water pipes
frozen, etc.

Many people die pretty rapidly in such situations.

SteveW

On Friday, 3 August 2018 19:54:33 UTC+1, Rod Speed wrote:
That's how the scandinavians do it and they have
that situation a lot more often than you lot do.

Which is why it's worthwhile for the Scandinavians to invest the money in having that sort of kit on standby.

We don't even have enough gritters to clear Heathrow.

Owain

Steve Walker wrote:
Yes, because it has been a requirement for phones to still work when the
mains power fails. Which is the whole point of what I have been saying
from the start! The exchange has large batteries and an auto-start
generator to maintain the system - fibre cannot power the phone in
someone's house!

That's true. OTOH there are people who don't have a POTS phone in their
house, because they all use their mobiles. Or their phone is DECT which
doesn't work when there's a power outage. Plus landlines might not work
when there's a flood or storm, if wires are down or saturated.

So there might be a case that we should provide the emergency link by
mobile, which also has the advantage that it can be useful in situations
like when you're trapped on the roof of your house by rising flood waters.

That would mean base stations with backup power supplies, but also giving
subscribers some kind of backup charging for their mobile whose battery will
likely only last a day. It also means retaining landline backup for those
who can't get a mobile signal.

I wonder whether supplying every household with a power bank in your router,
which keeps the landline alive but also charges mobiles, might not be
infeasible?

Theo

"Steve Walker" wrote in message
news
On 03/08/2018 01:00, Rod Speed wrote:


"Steve Walker" wrote in message
news
On 02/08/2018 23:25, Rod Speed wrote:


"Steve Walker" wrote in message
news On 02/08/2018 20:22, Theo wrote:
Steve Walker wrote:
Assuming that both the VOIP phone and router need to be powered to
make
calls, how are they getting around this? Especially when a severe
weather event could take power out to isolated houses or whole
villages
for days, in conditions where the residents can't travel to get
help.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/consultatio...ions-power-cut
summary
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/...gency-services


They seem to be proposing 1 hour backup, but only for those with
pre-exisiting risk due to health problems. That won't be of much use
to someone with a health problem who wakes up one morning and finds
that the power went off 5 hours ago; or for the able bodied who
similarly find that power has been off for some time and they are
isolated due to deep snow - as happened to many people recently!

Sure, but the later dont need to call anyone because
there is nothing anyone can do about that.

It was bad enough that army helicopters were dropping supplies -

So those they dropped the supplys to could
obviously communicate the need for those.

Yes, because it has been a requirement for phones to still work when the
mains power fails. Which is the whole point of what I have been saying
from the start! The exchange has large batteries and an auto-start
generator to maintain the system - fibre cannot power the phone in
someone's house!

Doesnt need to when the modem router has a backup
battery that allows the router to continue to provide
the voip service when the main power is out.

And it makes no sense whatever to continue to have to maintain
the entire copper network and all the exchanges just so those who
cant move around after that sort of very rare event can whistle up a
chopper because they have been too stupid to ensure that they
can manage to survive until someone ploughs the roads.

And even if you do want to allow those that stupid to survive,
it makes a hell of a lot more sense to ensure that the mobile
bases in those very unusual areas do have proper backup batterys.

that's not going to happen if no-one knows that they are stuck there
without power

If you're in that situation, you obviously need a mobile

And as I have said earlier, many mobile base stations are NOT battery
backed.

Those in areas like that should be.

Even if they are, there are many blackspots with no signal.

Areas that can be snowed in for a week should obviously
have a mobile base there. Lot cheaper to do that than to
keep the entire country's dinosaur copper network and all
the exchanges working forever for that sort of emergency.

And its trivial to chopper in a COW there too.

and quite possibly without heating because of it.

In that case you can obviously get real radical and
go to bed if its cold enough to be a health problem.

It's rapidly going to do that with no heating at all,

Trivial to ensure that you have a gas tank that will
allow heating until the roads are cleared again.

water pipes frozen, etc.

See above.

Many people die pretty rapidly in such situations.

Only the fools too stupid to go to bed and too stupid
to have a tank of gas to run the heater until the road is
cleared again.

wrote
Rod Speed wrote

That's how the scandinavians do it and they have
that situation a lot more often than you lot do.

Which is why it's worthwhile for the Scandinavians to
invest the money in having that sort of kit on standby.

No real money involved in having mobile bases with
backup batterys and COWs. And before anyone starts
rabitting on about how you charge your phone with
no mains power, you do that in the car and the car
will do that fine in the garage even if the drive is
so deep in snow that you can't get the car out.

We don't even have enough gritters to clear Heathrow.

Sure, but thats a situation where there is a big cost for
the stuff that is only useful in those very rare situations.

"Theo" wrote in message
...
Steve Walker wrote:
Yes, because it has been a requirement for phones to still work when the
mains power fails. Which is the whole point of what I have been saying
from the start! The exchange has large batteries and an auto-start
generator to maintain the system - fibre cannot power the phone in
someone's house!

That's true. OTOH there are people who don't have a POTS phone in their
house, because they all use their mobiles. Or their phone is DECT which
doesn't work when there's a power outage. Plus landlines might not work
when there's a flood or storm, if wires are down or saturated.

So there might be a case that we should provide the emergency link by
mobile, which also has the advantage that it can be useful in situations
like when you're trapped on the roof of your house by rising flood waters.

That would mean base stations with backup power supplies, but also giving
subscribers some kind of backup charging for their mobile whose battery
will
likely only last a day.

Not necessary, they can charge it in their car even if the car is stuck in
the garage or drive.

It also means retaining landline backup
for those who can't get a mobile signal.

Makes more sense to add another base in area which can get snowed in like
that.

I wonder whether supplying every household with a power
bank in your router, which keeps the landline alive but also
charges mobiles, might not be infeasible?

Our FTTP modems do in fact have a backup battery
that allows the voip phone that is plugged into
that to keep running during a mains failure.

And like I said, no need for it to charge the mobile,
they can use their car for that or if they don’t have
a car, any of the readily available power banks will
do that fine. No point in having that in the modem.

On Fri, 3 Aug 2018 04:28:11 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

Hopefully one of the things that will come out locally is some
form
of "register" (probably have to be voluntary to be on it) of who
lives where and maybe if they have any "special needs".

The combination of BT's directory database

Assumes people have telephone service from BT. If they have just the
physical line provided by BT and telephone service from A.N.Other
they have no no contract with BT.

... and the national address gazetteer (which I think has geodata)
should already provide the first.

Does that distinguish between "permenantly" occupied, second homes,
holiday lets?

BT also has a register for free priority fault repair (which requires a
medical letter or similar), and the energy companies all have vulnerable
customer databases.

Yes but all individually maintained and use of the information
controlled by data protection. I doubt that the information they hold
could be shared with a third party to identify "occupied" premisis.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 03 Aug 2018 22:35:46 +0100 (BST), Theo wrote:

I wonder whether supplying every household with a power bank in your
router, which keeps the landline alive but also charges mobiles, might
not be infeasible?

AIUI the ONTs that convert the fibre to POTs and/or ethernet have
rechargeable batteries, either in them or the power supply brick. I
believe they are also user changeable and have a light to say "change
me" (not that people will pay any attention to that).

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Saturday, 4 August 2018 09:49:16 UTC+1, Dave Liquorice wrote:
The combination of BT's directory database
Assumes people have telephone service from BT.

Directory Management System (formerly OSIS) Listing
The Directory Management System database contains more than 27 million residential and business names, addresses, and telephone numbers supplied by over 80 UK Telecommunication Providers.
https://www.voipfone.co.uk/PB_osis_listing.php
https://www.btwholesale.com/pages/st...-solutions.htm

... and the national address gazetteer (which I think has geodata)
should already provide the first.
Does that distinguish between "permenantly" occupied, second homes,
holiday lets?

No, but any of them may have hungry people stuck on the roof.

There is also the Royal Mail delivery point database, but that excludes normally non-deliverable places like village halls, which is unfortunate as they're quite useful places to know about in an emergency.

Owain