
New Streetlamps Will Keep Cell Service Running After an Earthquake - uipoliti
http://gizmodo.com/las-new-streetlamps-will-keep-cell-service-running-afte-1741056846
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Animats
I thought they were going to put microcells in solar powered street lights.
No. This claim assumes the street lights retain both power and fiber optic
connectivity.

Some areas in hurricane country are going to solar powered street lighting.[1]
There are several manufacturers which make solar panel powered units tough
enough for that. Giving them minimal cellular capability (voice and text only,
RF relay to each other) might be worth it. There's a minor startup opportunity
there, coming up with a low-cost, very rugged, very long life unit which can
do that.

[1] [http://www.sepco-solarlighting.com/projects/solar-street-
lig...](http://www.sepco-solarlighting.com/projects/solar-street-
lighting/hurricane-rated-solar-street-lights-for-dania-beach)

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sitkack
Seattle is undergoing a near total replacement of their old street lights to
LED. At the same time, they have squandered an opportunity to install a
wireless mesh work that is already wired for power and has great line of site.
The hot nodes could be downlinked to fiber/dsl/etc.

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superuser2
I'm sure your local cable monopoly fought it as "unfair competition."

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sitkack
It isn't as simple as that. I'd put the problem squarely in the lap of the
city counsel. An arcane and exclusionary last-to-touch rule for pole repairs
and a council that can't actually make any decisions results in only mud.

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jpollock
There are a couple reasons you lose cell coverage in an earthquake.

1) Loss of electricity.

2) Congestion.

This doesn't fix either of them. Everyone is still going to pick up their
phone, and the lines (power and network) will still be cut.

In fact, it makes it worse, since it is no longer possible to bring in a
generator and provide power to the street lights.

Since routing, billing and interconnection are centralised, networks with
longer wires are less reliable. The likelihood of a break increases with
distance.

What it will do is provide quick and easy blanket coverage without the pesky
nimby's knowing they are surrounded by cell towers.

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EdwardDiego
Exactly. 1) is usually already catered for (for some hours, at least) with
battery backups at the cell towers, and as for 2), only building capacity not
needed 99.9% of the time will fix it.

During the Christchurch 2011 earthquake, the cellular services were taken down
immediately by several hundred thousand people simultaenously trying to ring
loved ones. Luckily the payphones were still operational to an extent - you
couldn't call within Christchurch, but calling to locations outside of
Christchurch worked.

It took about 8 or 9 hours for the backlog of SMS messages to be delivered on
the day of the quake.

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gtani
[http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-eric-garcetti-
el...](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-eric-garcetti-el-
nino-20151106-story.html)

this morning's news: LA got its 4 cell providers to agree "to share network
capabilities in the aftermath of an emergency."

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jakeogh
Another excuse to further integrate full spectrum surveillance of the
subjects.

