In my local area, none of the MBNL sites have battery backup, meaning when there is a local power cut, the signal goes completely for both Three and EE.

I remember that back when I was with Orange that most of their sites had battery backup for at least the 2G component of their service. Why did MBNL not continue this policy? O2 and Voda are unaffected locally as both have backup power for their sites.

jayteedc

MBNL was designed as a low cost network, I think only main sites have backup, it was probably just a cost decision.

Most power cuts are very localised and you can roam to any available network for 999 calls as of about 2010 when that was implemented, so there's a good chance you'll get a more distant network on 1 of the operators in most cases.

Can't say during major power cuts in North Scotland that I've ever been without signal. I've heard of it in the Island areas but if your in a village, town or city covered by a few masts it really shouldn't be a problem unless you want data as other masts will take over and adjust output.

It's pretty pointless as the batteries wouldn't last long with the tech that's now in place. It was great when you had a 2G only site but this isn't the case now and Councils would likely have issues with on street cab sizes. There is no guarante the backhaul won't go down too.
The larger off street multi user sites sometimes have UPS systems anyways.

I've heard of some cabs having battery back ups in critical areas but this was to avoid brief power outages ie a few mins to stop the mast going down if the mains got "lumpy" it also allowed it to shout out a "night night" to the network to alert them.

999 "roaming" has been around far longer than 2010.. Well sort of.

How do you distinguish a main site? (apart from a signal when there's a power cut)

Ofcom mandated it as of 15th October 2009.

http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/news/connecting-citizens/

Nevermind, google answered my question

Unless I am mistaken the networks started working together on such a scheme around 2004/2005. I have known customers of different networks roaming on to others when an emergency call is needed. I think prior to OFCOM mandating it, all of the networks had a gentlemens agreement in respect of this. I think it was also extended to other infrastructure owned by Network Rail, although that would need clarifying.

Mbnl goes offline in mid Wales when there is a power cut. O2 stays online.

I read they disabled emergency calls without a sim card, I guess they were getting a lot of untraceable hoax calls or something?

Otherwise it seems stupid, yeah 99% of people are going to have a SIM in their phone but I bet there are a few lives to be saved by being able to call without a sim.

Source (Point 5): http://www.redcross.org.uk/en/What-w...activities/999

But surely this would only work if people know about it.
I might try to dial 112 if my phone said no service but most people wouldn't know they could.
I thought some handsets said "emergency" if other networks were detected but most don't do they?

On my galaxy it says emergency calls and has bars of signal , iphone just says no service . So I wouldnt even know if I had service from another network to make an emergency call

It didn't work until Ofcom mandated it in 2009 except for a brief period in the 1990s. It was actually switched off at the request of the emergency authorities due to the volume of hoax and nuisance calls being received which they couldn't trace. After this, phones might have displayed 'emergency calls only' on the screen when they camped on another network's cell in the limited service state but if tried, an emergency call would fail.

By 2009 however, the UK was one of very few countries in Europe where it didn't work.

Maybe in your local area, it'll vary area by area, some MBNL sites will have backup and some other O2 street cabinets may not. O2 does have a lot of wide area 900Mhz masts on big towers though, not good for capacity but handy for this (pretty rare) eventuality.

the new o2 Streetworks cabinets called Lancasters appear have battery backup well I saw a bank if batteries in one being installed recently

It doesn't mean they are for keeping the mast online following a power cut..

I'd agree. I think what is seen in that circumstance is the difference of 900 2G/3G vs EE 18002G/MBNL 21003G