Re: Y2K Was: Re: POWER: San Mateo/San Francisco power outage report

[Nathan Stratton <nathan () robotics net>]

I just wanted to clarify something, I got a few email messages from people
who said I was one of the nuts who is saying the world would fall apart
Y2K, I think everything will work out. I do not recommend anyone fill
baggies full of dried food, buy a gun, or build a house underground. I
think we will get though this ok.

I was just trying to point out that some of the power systems in the US
are very fragile and that it does not take a lot to bring the system down.
My recommendation on having your generator ready is something all ISPs
should do no matter what year it is. I do think we will have power
outages, but the systems WILL come back online and thinks WILL get back to
normal. This is a operational issue and we need to make sure our systems
are protected.

--
Check out the new CLEC mailing list at http://www.robotics.net/clec
> <>
Nathan Stratton                         Telecom & ISP Consulting
www.robotics.net                        nathan () robotics net

On Wed, 9 Dec 1998, Nathan Stratton wrote:

> I would agree, that is why I am worried about year 2K power issues. I
> think for the most part everything is ok with most of the larger
> providers, but I have talked to several smaller energy providers who will
> not be ready for y2k. The systems that may/will (depending on who you talk
> to) fail are normally not that big of a deal to restart after they trip.
> The problem is that this could cause a cascading failure that would take
> down most of the national grid. When you have something like that happen
> it is not that easy to bring everything back on-line. As far as I know we
> have never had the entire national grid fail, we have had large
> sections (say New York, 13 north western states, etc.) of the grid fail
> because of cascading failures that were caused by very small problems. 
>
> If you are a ISP, you better have your generators ready, I think you are
> going to need to use them.
>
> --
> Check out the new CLEC mailing list at http://www.robotics.net/clec
> > <>
> Nathan Stratton                               Telecom & ISP Consulting
> www.robotics.net                      nathan () robotics net