With the recent storms in the north West/Cumbria and the Scottish borders, how do/did the mobile phone networks perform?
Do they have generator/UPS back up at the mast sites?
Are the networks resilient enough to deal with disasters/emergency's?

I'd assume that critical cell sites would have backup power. Enough to keep phone/sms operating.

Maybe they'd deploy COWs when extra capacity is needed during an emergency.

When we had a two week long powercut two years ago in Surrey, we were plunged into pretty much radio darkness as none of the masts vaguely nearby, let alone receivable, had backup power

The cell that supplies me has backup generators as it also supplies radio and digital TV. The mast is on a secluded mountain supplied by overhead power which regularly gets knocked out during storms. It's operated by Arqiva iirc.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.10...7i13312!8i6656

Depends on the importance of the site to what level of backup is provided, it's complex method used to calculate the level of importance.

The big macro site using microwave backhaul on tall buildings or hill sides are generally ok, the smaller lamppost sites can be more of a challenge as the cab is at street level, no amount of UPS will save it from water ingrees from a river spilling over.

EE always goes down around here in a power cut . Voda and O2 always stay on tho. Right pita

I love this kind of info about infrastructure - we so take it all for granted. It's interesting to know how our comms hold together in testing times. Should I keep the CB radio just in case?

Does make you wonder how EE feel that they can compete with TETRA for emergency comms.. bit worrying if as soon as an emergency happens that the comms go down because they arent designed for that sort of problem.

In the Great Storm of 1987, the landline phone kept working even though the power was out for nearly ten days. It was supplied by copper wire on telegraph poles. Two days after the power came back on the phones went out as a truck knocked over the telegraph pole opposite the house.

My current rural abode has the phone wires on catenaries dangling through the trees. I expect the landlines and broadband to go in a hurricane, but the nearby cell antennas to stay upright.

But do they have power UPS and flood protection?

I keep a generator and a big UPS here for power cuts, but there's not much I can do if the cell towers go down.

The amateur 4x4 'Response Teams' round here all have CB radios.

I was told at the Vodafone NOC recently that they have backup power for only a relatively short time (as in around 15-30 minutes) as that's usually sufficient.

No good for long outages.

In which case how on earth are ee going to be able to compete with the current airwave TETRA sites, most of which I believe also have gas generators so will run for a long time in case of a mains power outage!

Most of the TETRA locations up here are on the multi user sites which have have multiple power inputs and emergency backups. Rare to see Tetra anywhere else if I'm honest, here at least.

Plenty of them down here - I've seen TETRA sites that seem to be the sole occupant (and not far away, someone's cellular mast).

I'd assume that even on the shared sites, the occupants only get the level of service they're paying for? If Airwave has a generator I can't see it being shared with the other operators without them contributing to the cost

Agreed. I'd imagine if EE was supplying EMRG telecoms, they would be paying for the resilience.

In my area TETRA is usually on stand alone masts, so I've no idea if they have small gensets to keep them running.

There's a TETRA antenna on my mast.
Paramedic radios still can't get through my walls!!

It will have backup for the Arqiva side, not the mobile telecoms side. If there is a backup, it will be via batteries for each operator rather than supplied from Arqiva for the whole site

That makes sense, a lot of the refresh work they have been doing has involved taking away the battery back ups that they once used.

And they are the only runner to replace Airwave too. Great eh?

Pretty sure they will be mandated to ensure back up power to all masts that require it when the new emergency system rolls out.

This O2 cabinet certainly has some sealed lead acid battery backup (bottom left of cabinet). here

jayteedc

Last year when we had a 6hr power cut my local 40m mast went completely 'dark' after about an hour.

EE went off immediately, as did the local FM radio station however Vodafone stayed on a bit longer.

Still, I was surprised at EE with it being a Macro site.

The Three tower in my village always goes off during a mains fail. When it happens though I can sometimes pick-up a tower in a neighbouring village.

It's not a massive place (population around 600) so I guess they don't see much point in putting a UPS in to support it.