In 1995, outages dropped to 1.26 per home but the duration increased to 117 minutes. Traditionally, you needed eight hours of backup power supplies, Sloane says. Alpha is in several field trials with several DSL providers, which face similar capacity, scalability and peak usage issues as cable. Bell Atlantic also is testing gas-fired generators from Alpha. A second, largely logistical issue, is riding the new service growth curve.
Operators can predict the load.
With data and phone, you've got to take some type of usage factor. Davis says most operators are looking at four hours of standby time for data services. Our philosophy is to go in with one power supply and be set for the future. Macrodyne offers solid state products, he said, that are as reliable as the UPS that backs up computer systems. It's a true online technology.