03-08-2015, 01:13 AM
Yep, TWC engineering is pretty good about making sure stuff stays up, IIRC, they have some of their Alpha's setup with 6x100AH AGM/SLA batteries, that's about 36 hours of backup power, and the way nodes are split sometimes there may be 6 nodes on the same string of hardline coax, so other power supplies can take up for the slack if one fails. Hub Sites usually have battery + generator backup & onsite propane storage and utility propane, RDC's are usually fed by 2+ grid connections, have battery backup and generator backup. I know they also have redundancy in the fiber ring, as recently a 128 strand fiber line was cut and while service was effected, they were able to route around it for a bit and keep phone+internet working, albeit the internet was pretty slow. The engineering aspect of it all is pretty damn fascinating to me. They can even find a break using optical or coaxial TDR analyzers and compare it to engineering blueprints to find where a break could be/is.