Re: Maintenance modems and power failures

[Joseph Lapolito <jml () navinet net>]

We have been using a DC powered 28.8 modem made by
a company called WTI.  

It is basically a USR modem ripped open put into a rack mount
chassis and converted to take a .25amp DC feed.

They have worked well for us so far.

-Joe



At 01:54 PM 2/10/99 -0600, Sean Donelan wrote:
> Hopefully some people will find this related to the operations of their
> network.
>
> Ah, maintenance modems.  Why do they always seem not to work just at
> the moment you need them.
>
> PG&E released their report on the San Francisco power outage in December.
> Most of it was the information previously reported.  One interesting
> thing was PG&E lost access to three of their SCADA remote monitoring
> units because the modems were plugged into utility power instead of
> a UPS.
>
> Most network providers are aware of the secret hiding in most of our
> POPs.  Those little sporters and courier modems stuffed into a rack
> somewhere plugged into the nearest available outlet, as the only
> out-of-band access.  Has anyone come up with a solution for powering
> these forgotten pieces of equipment, which doesn't cost more than
> the modem itself?
>
> At first you might think it makes sense to power them off the UPS
> which is powering the rest of your equipment.  The only problem is
> if you are using the maintenance modem to monitor your UPS.  This
> is just one of those things which has bugged me for a few years, but
> I still haven't come up with a solution I really like.
> -- 
> Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
>  Affiliation given for identification not representation
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Joseph Lapolito                 300 Federal Street 
Sr. Network Engineer            Andover, MA 01810
NaviNet                         508-552-3379 off.
jml () navinet net                      508-552-3500 fax
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