Wait, cell towers need power?
Posted by Boredsittingatadesk@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 117 comments
Repost from some time ago because it got removed due to insufficient karma or something:
This is a recent favorite of mine. For context, I live in an area of the world where power outtages are not very common, but in this story we had quite the major outtage recently.
User: *saunters in with a ticket# for me to find and replace the SIM card to his phone*
Me: *replaces SIM card* Allright sir, looks like you're all set, good luck with your new SIM card and don't forget the back of the card that has the reset codes if need be.
User: Thanks, I hope I can actually use the data plan on this SIM card, the last one wouldn't give me data for whatever reason.
Me: Ah that's why you're replacing the SIM card?
User: Yep, I thought I would get some work in during that power outtage we had last week and because my router was out of power I thought I'd just use my data plan on the company phone.
Me: Sir, you know that cell towers require power to operate, right?
User:... uuh???
Me: So you've wasted our time to replace a SIM card that wasn't broken?
User:... Thanks, have a nice day! *runs off before I can say anything else*
frac6969@reddit
Could depend on how it was set up. More than ten years ago we had a huge flood that took out half the country. My area was completely devastated and we had no power for a month. But the cell towers worked and we charged our phones with generators.
Myrandall@reddit
Bangladesh?
frac6969@reddit
Thailand.
wra1th42@reddit
Cell towers usually have backup batteries that can last several hours, and some companies will run generators to keep them up longer
NoeticSkeptic@reddit
There are also solar-powered cell towers.
frac6969@reddit
Yeah, but the whole area was flooded (up to second floor in many places) and the cell towers were all in water. We couldn’t understand how they were getting power. We had to put our servers in boats and row them out to another site.
RememberCitadel@reddit
Some places put their cell tower on top of tall buildings instead of free standing, and a lucky few also have their generators up there as well. They use fiber fir uplink, so as long as they have fuel and the water didnt get into the fuel, they are golden. Assuming the building doesn't fall down.
Our local carrier hotel we rent space in has a second set of generators in an open air floor just under the top floor, so their cell towers would work even if flooded.
zaaxuk@reddit
but the diesel tanks for the generators in the basement
RememberCitadel@reddit
I've seen places where that was not the case. Usually grandfathered in. In theorey, the diesel or propane should be sealed anyway and work fine flooded.
Propane especially works fine since tanks are often buried underground. They have to be able to be flooded.
SavvySillybug@reddit
Hah, look at that! Their servers still run on boats! We've long advanced to the cloud!! Floating way higher than in boats.
kotenok2000@reddit
I just imagined a Data Center built on an old nuclear icebreaker.
kalei50@reddit
I'd watch that TV show
RelativisticTowel@reddit
Snowpiercer but I'd be actually invested in the outcome
RolandDeepson@reddit
Hush, the techbros will hear you.
ddadopt@reddit
Pfft, they're obviously more advanced than you are--they have a data lake.
AshleyJSheridan@reddit
Is that a UK or US second floor? Could make the difference between water 3m high, versus 6m high, assuming floors started at ground level and weren't half in the ground or somesuch.
frac6969@reddit
Yeah, it was average 3 meters. Everything in my manufacturing plant was destroyed except for servers which were on the second floor and some of our products stored in tall warehouse shelves. I thought I was gonna die because no power and no food. Unlimited water though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Thailand_floods
pyrokay@reddit
Wait, the floods that pushed the price of HDD's up 15% in the following year? You gotta tell that story!
frac6969@reddit
Yeah, I’ve posted about it before. We were one of the lucky ones because even though all manufacturing machines were destroyed we were able to move our servers out to another site meaning all of our programs worked. We could deliver our products by boat to dry land to load onto trucks. All of our competitors were dead in the water and we actually broke sales records. The flood went away after a month and it took us about six months to rebuild everything and go back to production. A lot of companies just closed and gone home.
https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/s/l2tCZCJN80
MichigaCur@reddit
Believe it or not some of the huts are designed to float. We generally anchor them to the ground, but I'll never forget going to Louisiana where they built some of the huts. They had a pond and in the middle was a hut floating on the water.
Usually in high flood risk areas, they'll put the huts / cabinets up high enough that average floods won't bother them. I used to have a site that was on 8ft stilts and a generator was mounted on the roof. Still have a few on rooftops, but that's more a space issue than flood avoidance. Most of the time I also have some mobile sites I can get deployed for emergency coverage situations too.
ciclicles@reddit
Swapped your storage pool for a storage lake
SeanBZA@reddit
Batteries to hold them up, and after the water dropped they brought in a generator, either on a rooftop, or outside the control room.
frac6969@reddit
Maybe they had underwater generators set up using boats.
Tronmech@reddit
When superstorm Sandy took our power out for 5 days, the cell towers stayed live for 3.
Last month, maybe 30 min. Someone cheaped out.
JustSomeGuy_56@reddit
When Hurricane Sandy knocked out power in my area for 2 weeks, the cell carriers and CATV companies had little gas fired generators mounted at the top of their poles. Once a day a guy would drive up in a bucket truck and refill them.
ZoraksGirlfriend@reddit
That’s actually kind of cool and a bit reassuring.
Stonn@reddit
As they should. They are critical infrastructure.
aceospos@reddit
Where I'm from, power from the public utility company is so horrible that towers use generators as main power source
sallp@reddit
Plus radio towers, like for cell phones, tend to be built on hills, so that helps with flooding.
Boredsittingatadesk@reddit (OP)
Yeah afaik cell towers will fall back to 2G/3G operation in times of need to conserve power and to facilitate emergency calls with a built in UPS, but you still won't get data that way.
Adnubb@reddit
Where I live 2G/3G still has data capabilities (although 2G is as slow heck). But I can imagine they turn off the hardware related to handling data at the cell tower to save power. I have no way to verify that though.
Boredsittingatadesk@reddit (OP)
Yeah I did also only hear this from an unverified source, but it stands to reason that that would happen indeed.
Deepspacecow12@reddit
It doesn't make sense imo, why not just use the newer more efficient gear that can handle the hellstorm of calls about to go through because of a natural disaster. 2G/3G needs seperate hardware and software core running in parallel, unless they paid extra for a solution like Nokia SRAN or something. Still need a seperate core though.
Boredsittingatadesk@reddit (OP)
*usually* that's because 2G/3G is what is already there as we're upgrading to 4G and 5G. But as more and more governments are turning off lower power towers in favour of newer technology, it might be worth looking into for sure.
TrippTrappTrinn@reddit
Countries are shutting down 2g and 3g to free up the frequencies for 4g and 5g. Where I live 3g is already shut down, and 2g will be shut down next year.
UsablePizza@reddit
That's surprising that 2g is getting shut down. In our country, there are so many 2g modems around that are used for things (like smart power meters, remote sensors etc) that it's probably likely that 4G gets shutdown before 2G
CM1112@reddit
And here 2G is still being installed exclusively on new poles (for gsm-r which has a 5G thing in the works because phone providers don’t particularly want to support it but as usual when talking about hugely safety critical comms networks (including signalling in some areas with ERTMS/ETCS, but basically always stuff like emergency stop) it won’t be ready for a couple of years and the “new standard” keeps changing
i_am_a_baguette@reddit
That's very interesting my country (Australia) shut down 2g probably 5 years ago now and the 3g shut down is imminent. It's been pushed back a couple of times the last couple Of years. But shouldn't be long now.
What country are you in if you don't mind?
Ich_mag_Kartoffeln@reddit
It's more than 6 years since the last 2G network (Vodafail) closed in Australia, with the exception of Christmas Island.
i_am_a_baguette@reddit
oh 6 years already? That's wild
Ich_mag_Kartoffeln@reddit
6+ years for Vodafail, 7+ for Sloptus, and 8+ for Hellstra.
UsablePizza@reddit
Yeah, as one commenter said - NZ. I find it crazy that 2g has gone, that would have been a large investment to move everything from 2G. But like ripping a band-aid, it's done now.
Dirmb@reddit
Looks like probably NZ.
Belgarion0@reddit
Telia postponed the 2G shutdown by 2 years (until 2027) due to pushback regarding large amounts of devices still using 2G.
kotenok2000@reddit
Not even GPRS?
trip6s6i6x@reddit
Before The advent of 4g, 3g was your data connection...
Morpheus636_@reddit
All the cell towers near me have massive diesel tanks and generators. When the power goes out, they continue to operate at full speed.
Flipflopvlaflip@reddit
Really depends on the provider. UPS is expensive so I know a provider who didn't do that
SeanBZA@reddit
Mobile operators will bring out a generator to them, to power the service. They all have back up battery as well, generally good for 48 hours of operation if power is lost, and the site sends telemetry on all aspects as well to a central office.
MichigaCur@reddit
That's a heck of a lot of batteries.
Depends on where you're at, but at least my area it's like 85% have a generator on site. Even in the analog days I don't think I ever saw a site with enough batteries to go more than about 12hrs.
SeanBZA@reddit
South Africa, where stealing cabling is common, so they will do that. Also where the batteries get stolen often, so the new ones are now encased in epoxy concrete in the building.
knackzoot@reddit
I recently was able to see the bill from the power company for one cellphone tower and it was way more than I ever expected.
paulstelian97@reddit
If you get close enough to an active cell tower at full power I wouldn’t be surprised if you could heat up stuff. Close enough might mean climbing on it partway though.
MichigaCur@reddit
Unless one of the lines wasn't torqued, you'd pretty much need to stand in front of an antenna.
Source, I'm a tower guy.
Crosscourt_splat@reddit
Are you excited to have daughters if and when you have kids?
/s…ish
paulstelian97@reddit
In my area I have never had a situation where a power outage also equaled cellular outage. Maybe reduced coverage (lower signal, perhaps even fallback to 3G from the two lines of 4G I normally get) but not gone, not even for outages that affect half the country (I had one of those). So yeah guess they have their own power here.
PachotheElf@reddit
You're lucky to live in a country where communication towers have backup generators/batteries that get fuel and maintenance. I used to live in a country that used to have them, but then corruption seeped in deep enough and anytime there was a blackout (even just a short and local one) you lost all contact with the outside world. If you needed to make a call you had to go to a place that had power.
Crosscourt_splat@reddit
Or just backup towers within range….
A power outage to knock out an entire regions cell towers would be pretty huge. Like catastrophic natural disaster huge. Cell networks are usually layered in most of the northern hemisphere. It’s a fundamental part of a lot of cell phones and how a slew of their capabilities work.
paulstelian97@reddit
Yeah Romania, I expect basically all of Europe to be fine from this point of view.
Eureka05@reddit
Years back in Tech Support we had a client (who purchased our company software) call in to say he was having issues getting the computer to boot the software. Turns out the computer wouldn't boot, so we helped out and went through things to check, and when he checked to make sure the power bar was plugged in, he said he needed a flashlight, because the power was out and he couldnt' see.
I wish this was not real
Crosscourt_splat@reddit
Kinda like when you’re looking for your keys…and they’re win your hand the whole time.
Happens to us all at some point.
porpoiseoflife@reddit
I had one of those when I was working phones for Dork Corps.
ChaosDrawsNear@reddit
Shit, so that's why I never have cell service during power outages! I never realized, because my partner always does (different cell carriers).
zivSlash@reddit
A power outage doesnt mean you lose cellular internet... It depends on how major it is, and for how long it runs.
And also where.
Over here it's buisness as usual for probably a few days... Beyond that, I don't know.
Let's say it's a very reasonable expectation, if you're used to first-world, non-catastrophic-disaster, situations.
If I lost cell internet just because there was a power outage for a few hours, even nation-wide, I would be mighty pissed. Very big no-no here.
Also, that attitude is VERY rude.
Radaysho@reddit
You really said that to a customer?
EmersonLucero@reddit
When I ran Corp IT, I would. Even to the CEO. “You spent $1k in cell roaming charges in Canada so you do not need to pay the $20 a day for Hotel WiFi?”
RepresentativeIcy922@reddit
Hotel Wifi might be insecure though?
paulstelian97@reddit
Tailscale to a home setup. Or some other VPN. Should protect against basically all the drawbacks of foreign unsecured Wi-Fi.
qqby6482@reddit
I can’t tailscale home because the power is out
paulstelian97@reddit
You can set up a Tailscale exit node on another trusted location like a VPS. Of course that’s not free though.
VexingRaven@reddit
Good thing we have VPNs. I hope pretty much every corp has a VPN.
Zakrael@reddit
In the internal Corp IT world, your only "customers" are the CIO and CFO, and your job is to help them spend the least amount of money that allows them to face the fewest number of lawsuits.
Everyone else in the company gets support, advice, and occasional mandatory training dedicated to those two goals.
Boredsittingatadesk@reddit (OP)
Yeah it really depends on the relationship you have with the customer. For me I know I can be a bit more relaxed because they're a colleague not a customer and I am in an internal role rather than an external customer facing one, but we're still a highly professional workplace so I do still have to be somewhat careful
andredewerdt@reddit
Not uncommon in the Netherlands;)
Boredsittingatadesk@reddit (OP)
Dat ook ja :p
Boredsittingatadesk@reddit (OP)
Eh, it's been a few months since this happened so I cannot remember what I did and did not say, but I can tell you this story is shortened for brevity so I think I would have taken a little artistic liberty.
Radaysho@reddit
I see lol. I work in customer service as well and that sounded a bit harsh.
ZoraksGirlfriend@reddit
A lot of people don’t realize that cell towers also need landline/physical connections. They’re all connected by landlines/telephone lines to the switch. If that physical cable is severed, those towers won’t work.
There was one outage where a major cable (I think it was a trunk?) had been severed and it caused huge cellular outages with several carriers who all used the towers and switches serviced by that cable. The severed cable was in the news and landline service was down (this was decades ago) and most cell service was down in the area, but the people who could get through to tech support had a hard time understanding why their cell service would be down due to a physical cable getting severed.
FireLucid@reddit
We have a view of our local tower on top of a hill outside our office window. Had few people come in during some tower maintenance, asking if we were doing anything to block signals. We'd just point out the window to the huge crane next to the tower.
freunleven@reddit
In my area, cell towers have propane powered generators that keep them operational during a power outage. I understand that isn’t the case everywhere, though.
Boredsittingatadesk@reddit (OP)
Yeah as per my previous comment, I think locally they power down to a 2G/3G network and turn off data capabilities to conserve power on the battery backup
sir_mrej@reddit
You're out here pretending to know things. Why? Why not just state what you DO know, and move on
puterTDI@reddit
I've never once had cell service go down during a power outage, even a wide spread long term one. I always assumed that they have generators for cell towers and will continue to do so until I lose service during an outage.
Vinterblad@reddit
You misunderstood op.
paulstelian97@reddit
How did they? By mentioning why the issue wouldn’t happen in their area?
puterTDI@reddit
Also, I would absolutely have made the same assumption, and I worked 5 years as a network technician and then the last 15 years as a software engineer. I've literally had this very argument with comcast because I lost cable when my power went out and wanted them to replace their battery backups (which they're required by law in my state to have) and ended up in a 45 minute argument with them as they condescendingly told me that my internet was down because my router didn't have power and couldn't understand when I told them I have both 12 hours of battery backup and a week of generator power and that I never lost power to my network equipment.
MichigaCur@reddit
Lmfao yep, I'm basically last mile for my power grid, I've had arguments with them that I have standby power systems that run my entire house. Like this is some very unobtainable infrastructure to them.
Sadly I've even had the power company roll by see lights on and mark me restored. SMH.
paulstelian97@reddit
When I lose power my Internet is fine because it’s usually localized and the other end of the fiber in the neighboring town usually still has power. And I have my router and fiber optic endpoint powered by a UPS.
puterTDI@reddit
honestly, I went and reread the original post after their reply and I still can't see how I've misunderstood.
Agret@reddit
In the comments OP keeps writing this reply to people
It's weird that he works for a cell phone company but doesn't know anything about cell phone coverage
puterTDI@reddit
How have I misunderstood op?
Agret@reddit
I use mobile data whenever there is a power outage at home, if my laptop is charged I can use it for a couple hrs. Unless this was a multi day outage I think he wasn't wasting your time, I've seen sim cards that data wasn't working on but I think you could also go into the phone settings and manually enter the apn setting for mobile data to solve it too.
20InMyHead@reddit
What not how..
Tell me what the problem is, not how to fix it.
l008com@reddit
But don't cell towers typically have backup diesel generators that can probably run for a week before they need to be refueled?
Boredsittingatadesk@reddit (OP)
Yeah, but as per my other comment I was told they will fall back to 2G/3G operation to conserve power
Max-P@reddit
4/5G is more energy efficient than 2/3G as the higher bandwidth means you spend less time on the radio for an equivalent amount of data.
Also most of the 2/3G infrastructure is just gone.
That might have been true when 4G was new, you'd expect to be able to power off the 4G radio and only run the 3G one since you'd need the 3G radio for most users anyway. But these days they'd maybe shut down 5G to prioritize 4G, although typically you see 4/5G as the same infrastructure sharing bands so there's not much benefit to do so.
SeanBZA@reddit
They do not fall back, but instead will simply drop allocation of bandwidth to each device, according to the priority assigned to the SIM by the supplier. thus your regular consumer SIM will get assigned low priority, and will only get a very limited bandwidth, and a very limited time slot in the system to communicate, while those assigned to first responders and police, along with the military, will get a higher priority. As power levels lower the consumer stuff will simply be deauthed, and the phone will stop attempting to connect, while the transmit power will be greatly reduced to eke power out. Critical battery level the only thing will be the upstream data link, sending status, till the battery cuts out. Then the provider will bring in a generator, though there are a fair number of sites in rural areas that have solar panels providing the sole source of power, as running power cabling is expensive, and subject to damage and theft.
sereko@reddit
But that’s not true. 2G/3G aren’t even really a thing any more. Every time I’ve had a power outage at my house, my cell service stays at 4G/5G (they have backup power or don’t use the same utility as me, idk).
TrippTrappTrinn@reddit
That will depend on country and location. Where I live, only some remote towers have backup power. Maybe because power is extremely reliable.
gramathy@reddit
"but it's wireless why would it need power"
pockypimp@reddit
Could be worse, decades ago when I worked retail copy/print the power went out when I was at one of the stores. Since no power means no working machines they locked up until the power came back on. Someone comes up, knocks on the door, manager goes to the door. The customer was confused why he couldn't send a fax. The idea that a fax machine and the registers needed power eluded him.
ammit_souleater@reddit
Well, that. Also: where does the Internet go from the celltower? Anorher device that needs electricity to work? Weird...
coyote_of_the_month@reddit
I never lost data service during the Texas freeze of '21.
markhewitt1978@reddit
We have had several power cuts where I live but in each one the mobile networks kept working.
Temexi@reddit
Here ISPs have mandates that cell service must remain operational regardless of power outages. This is achieved by batteries and generators. Can't afford to lose that sweet sweet internet!
Superspudmonkey@reddit
We had a statewide outage in South Australia that meant the power was out for a long time. The power to the mobile phone towers held up for hours. They dropped down to 3G after several hours to preserve power.
You realise how boring life is when the internet is down.
Boredsittingatadesk@reddit (OP)
It's a fact of life that often after major power outtages, 9 months after there's a measurable growth in births
DiodeInc@reddit
Gotta make heat somehow
trip6s6i6x@reddit
I mean, power outages can be anywhere from highly localized to widespread. Depending on what caused it and barring a natural disaster-level event, of course, I don't think it's really that much of a stretch to believe that although your local power is out, a cell tower that you're not exactly close to would still be up and running normally. That kind of infrastructure has really become vital (they should have kept the title 2 classification honestly) and is often among the first things to be focused on and brought back online after outage-causing events. Source: Telecom worker.
DeliciousPumpkinPie@reddit
Most of the cell sites where I live have pretty beefy backup batteries they switch to when utility power is out, and if there’s an extended outage, crews will bring generators to keep them on until the power comes back. Definitely not a strange thing at all for someone to expect to be able to use mobile data if their wifi is out due to a power outage.
Kyranak@reddit
Last year we had a 4 days mega outage in my area. Cell towers stopped working after 12. Same with internet. That was a long 3.5 days. At least it wasn’t -30.
Boredsittingatadesk@reddit (OP)
Yeah as per my other comments, I am led to believe (at least for my local area) cell towers power down to 2G/3G operation to conserve power, and turn off data processing. We're in a country with little to no history of natural disasters due to decent protection against the elements, and in this case it was a case of technical issues with power delivery. It was city wide, and while we're the largest city in our country, but there are metropolitan areas that are 75% the size of our country, so when the power went out for half of the city, it was pretty much a 'major' outtage in terms of impact in the area this story occurs in 😅
InShambles234@reddit
Several times I've had remote locations complain that the wifi was down at their branch during a power outage.
Branch Manager: The wifi is down and we can't work. Me: There's a power outage there. The whole network will be down without power. BM: But the wifi is down. Me: Yes, the wifi is part of the network. BM: It's wireless.... Me: Yes. The wifi uses access points, which need power.
Usually that clears things up but a few times I've had people try to continue to argue with me. Or try to demand I dispatch a tech.
cruiserman_80@reddit
Cell towers here are set up to run for approx 12 hrs on battery and some locations have solar and backup generators depending on how critical the site is.
Also just because the power is out at your house it doesn't mean the power is out at your or adjoining towers. My house can get signal from three different towers as they are set up in a "Cellular" arrangement if you will.
emgreenenyc@reddit
Probably wasn’t the tower internet needs power routers,switches etc. good reason to keep real pots phone lines if possible their powered from the central office
SavvySillybug@reddit
A surprising amount of people seem to think phone internet is satellite internet.
When I moved to rural Germany for a few years, my mom complained that her reception was shit. I pulled up an online map of nearby cell towers and showed her how the nearest one was way over there and we were right on the outer edge of its rated distance. She was all, yeah I know phone calls are bad, but what about the internet?? She genuinely thought that was satellite based.
At least my explanation made sense to her and she understood it by the time the 5G tower thing was around so she did not get sucked into that conspiracy.
Stryker_One@reddit
But it's wireless. /s