Weather's Effect on Telecommunications Infastructure

 

 

Weathers Effect on Telecommunications Infrastructure
By: Danny

 

         Imagine this the wind outside is blowing, and the thunder is booming, then you hear a loud crack. A tree branch has just snapped and it has hit the overhead utility cables. That’s just one way how weather can affect telecommunications infrastructure, which includes cell towers, Internet, phone, and T.V lines. Weather has a negative effect on on all of the telecommunications infrastructure.

 

        Flooding is the one with the biggest impact because it very common and the majority of people live in areas where it will happen. For example, during Hurricane Sandy much of Lower Manhattan was flooded(D'Orazio). Verizon had a 90,000 cubic foot cable vault which suffered a catastrophic failure, according to Christopher D. Levendos, who is Versions executive director of operations(D'Orazio). As you probably can imagine, Manhattan is criss-crossed with cables everywhere, and the majority of Verizon's cables were still copper the miles they had were completely destroyed by flooding. But a bright side to the flooding and the destruction is they will replace all the copper with fiber which is not damaged by flooding(D'Orazio). Now, imagine what happens every year to any underground cable in floodplains if they are not protected right.

 

An angle on this topic you might not have seen is power outages, the majority of telecom equipment needs power to function. In 2010 there were 3,419 power outages in the U.S, 25% of which were caused by weather(Fabienne). After Sandy nearly 25% of cell towers in the Northeast were down which has a major impact on emergency services and rescue workers and many network operators expect more to go down because they have a small amount of fuel to power their back-up generators(Sinead).The cause of many power outages is ice build up or trees falling on to the lines(Fabienne). Power outages are serious things when it comes to telecom infrastructure.

 

           A more spartric from of outage is lightning and high winds.Many Northeast networks found that their above ground cables were snapped due to high winds and falling trees(Sinead).Verizon, Comcast and Cablevision all say that after Sandy, many of their customers in the Northeast were without T.V or Internet(Sinead). Now lighting is a low risk threat in the large terms its still a risk to most of our wireless links, including cell phones and microwave links. A direct or nearby hit can instantly vaporize the equipment on the tower or fuse copper together(jim). A problem in more rural areas where there are older power lines is they can be hit and direct the lightning into the ground that can go up your ground cable and zap your equipment with high voltage.

 

Weather has a negative effect on telecommunications infrastructure. For example it can snap

cables, destroy towers, and even flood whole switching offices. As you’ve seen weather has a serious negative effect on telecom infrastructure.

Works Cited

Carew, Sinead. "Hurricane Sandy Disrupts Northeast U.S. Telecom Networks." Chicago Tribune. Reuters, 30 Oct. 2012. Web. 20 Feb. 2013.

D'Orazio, Dante. "The Verge." The Verge. Vox Media, 17 Nov. 2012. Web. 20 Feb. 2013.

Faur, Fabienne. "'Third World' Power Outages Plague US Homes, Firms." Phys.org. Phys.Org, 6 .
Nov. 2011. Web. 20 Feb. 2013.

Jim. Online interview. 16 Feb. 2013.