Re: [External] Re: 10g residential CPE

[Mark Tinka]

On 12/28/20 05:29, Brandon Martin wrote:



Interestingly, the Lithium content is the, in theory, valuable part of 
it. There's not actually much Li in a typical Li-Ion rechargeable 
battery (much less than a Li metal primary cell), but my understanding 
is that it's enough to have people interested considering that we're 
already basically consuming the world's Lithium supply just about as 
fast as we can economically mine and refine it.  However, that may 
account for the apparently low recyleable content of a given battery. 
By mass and volume, it's mostly electrodes, which are common metals, 
and paper separator which is worthless.


I would imagine that, as "dead" Li-Ion cells become more available and 
demand presumably continues to rise (absent a better battery tech), 
folks will get more serious about recycling the electrolyte.


A lot of the development of Li-Ion batteries has gone into cost 
reduction. Very little of that has been spent on recyclablity. The lack 
of regulation around this hasn't helped either.


However, there are a number of initiatives afoot that may see this 
improve in the next decade. Moreover, the theory is that the nickel, 
cobalt, manganese and lithium available in spent batteries is not unlike 
highly-enriched ore. If these metals can be recycled at scale, it lowers 
the environmental impact (less need to mine natural ores), as well 
reduce the cost of the new batteries.


It's one area to watch.

For the moment, Li-Ion batteries are not terribly clean from a 
recyclability standpoint. But as renewable storage goes, it's the least 
of all evils that has great potential to be cleaner from ongoing 
development.


Mark.

Re: [External] Re: 10g residential CPE

[Brandon Martin]

On 12/27/20 5:26 AM, Mark Tinka wrote:
I'm just not sure where all that Li-Ion will go after 15 - 20 years of 
use, though...


One European manufacturer (the one whose battery I bought) says that as 
of now, they can only recycle 20% of each battery they sell. To me, that 
sounds like just the metal case enclosure, and the plastic facia.


Ah well, maybe disposal tech. for Li-Ion storage will have improved by 2040. 


Interestingly, the Lithium content is the, in theory, valuable part of 
it. There's not actually much Li in a typical Li-Ion rechargeable 
battery (much less than a Li metal primary cell), but my understanding 
is that it's enough to have people interested considering that we're 
already basically consuming the world's Lithium supply just about as 
fast as we can economically mine and refine it.  However, that may 
account for the apparently low recyleable content of a given battery. 
By mass and volume, it's mostly electrodes, which are common metals, and 
paper separator which is worthless.


I would imagine that, as "dead" Li-Ion cells become more available and 
demand presumably continues to rise (absent a better battery tech), 
folks will get more serious about recycling the electrolyte.

--
Brandon Martin

Re: [External] Re: 10g residential CPE

[Mark Tinka]

On 12/27/20 21:56, Keith Medcalf wrote:


Me too.  On top of that, diesel and gasoline are pretty reliable.  Though some people may argue about 
"renewables" the fact is that it is all a matter of time-frame.  Solar power, for example, is not renewable.  
Once it is all used up, it will not "renew" itself -- and this "using up" process is quite 
independent of our usage of it, as it happens.  The time to depletion may be somewhat long, but it still has a time to 
depletion.  Oil and Gas, however, is a "renewable" resource and as a mere physical and chemical process it is 
occurring at this very moment.


Well, the sun can't be "used up". You just have to wait 12hrs - 15hrs 
before you can see it again :-).


Seriously, though, solar != storage. You can have solar (power) without 
storage. It's not very useful when you have a grid outage, or on days 
with low irradiation, but for what it's worth, it will do its thing.


Renewables is not about lasting forever, but about lasting for as long 
as they can with minimal impact to the environment. Economically and/or 
physically.


Having spent some time on this, for me, it's about comfort, and quality 
of life. If you look at renewables as pure cost-benefit analysis (to the 
Economics majors, that's RoI), you'll be sorely disappointed.


Mark.

Re: [External] Re: 10g residential CPE

[Mark Tinka]

On 12/27/20 21:51, Sabri Berisha wrote:


Netflix has a documentary on it, "Fire In Paradise". Gives me the chills
every time I watch it.


I'll have a sniff. Thanks!

Mark.

Re: [External] Re: 10g residential CPE

[Mark Tinka]

On 12/27/20 19:49, Michael Thomas wrote:

We can't get enough solar panels on the roof to charge a battery big 
enough to handle a multi-day outage, and the battery as quoted is only 
charged from the panels, not from the mains. It's easy enough to get a 
transfer switch though for the battery subpanel to hook the generator 
up to. If I really wanted to get fancy, I could supply the generator 
from our house propane tank, but it's not that hard to just use the 
normal 5 gallon type tanks.


Fair enough.

Naturally, if you're looking at multi-day outages, then you'll likely 
reduce your load quite substantially for the period, allowing you to 
keep the battery running until the following morning when the sun comes up.


But yes, in your situation, a multi-day outage would not be that 
different from an off-grid self-generation scenario; in which case, a 
generator is necessary to recharge batteries, particularly on cloudy days.


Mark.

RE: [External] Re: 10g residential CPE

[Keith Medcalf]

On: Sunday, 27 December, 2020 03:26, Mark Tinka wrote:

>In the end, and for various reasons, I settled on renewables.

Me too.  On top of that, diesel and gasoline are pretty reliable.  Though some 
people may argue about "renewables" the fact is that it is all a matter of 
time-frame.  Solar power, for example, is not renewable.  Once it is all used 
up, it will not "renew" itself -- and this "using up" process is quite 
independent of our usage of it, as it happens.  The time to depletion may be 
somewhat long, but it still has a time to depletion.  Oil and Gas, however, is 
a "renewable" resource and as a mere physical and chemical process it is 
occurring at this very moment.

The "greenies" simply have bad colloquial language usage.  This is probably as 
a result of a failure to understand even rudimentary physics and chemistry and 
operating on miniscule time-scales.

On the other hand, the aliens could be quite pissed when they return to 
retrieve their fuel stash and discover that we have used it all.

--
Be decisive.  Make a decision, right or wrong.  The road of life is paved with 
flat squirrels who could not make a decision.

Re: [External] Re: 10g residential CPE

[Sabri Berisha]

- On Dec 27, 2020, at 10:06 AM, Michael Thomas m...@mtcc.com wrote:

Hi,

> Right and here in California, it was precisely those lines that
> incinerated Paradise.

And for those lurkers outside of CA, or even the U.S., the small town
named "Paradise" was completely wiped off the map a few years ago due 
to horrific wildfires. 

The smoke was so bad that here in the Bay Area we were wearing N95 masks
because of it. The masks I bought back then were useful again when the
pandemic started.

Netflix has a documentary on it, "Fire In Paradise". Gives me the chills
every time I watch it.

Thanks,

Sabri

Re: [External] Re: 10g residential CPE

[Michael Thomas]

On 12/27/20 10:26 AM, Baldur Norddahl wrote:
All of the 400V and 10 kV is buried. That means no wires along 
streets, anywhere.


The long haul transmission network consists mostly of 150 kV and 400 
kV lines. That has been partly buried, especially near and in cities. 
There was a project to have it all buried but was abandoned halfway 
due to cost.


But then it is all fully redundant, so they will just power it down if 
it needs maintenance. My company is digging for FTTH and in the few 
cases we need to cross one of these bad guys, they will shut it for us 
while we are working. Nobody looses power of course.


The 10 kV network is redundant too. We managed to hit those a few 
times.  That will cause a power interruption for 10 to 20 minutes 
until they reroute the power. I believe mostly for safety, they need 
to be sure that the damaged line will not become energized again.


It's hard to build in redundancy when the entirety of lower Manhattan 
was under water though. Dealing with that must have been a hellacious job.


Mike

Re: [External] Re: 10g residential CPE

[Baldur Norddahl]

søn. 27. dec. 2020 19.00 skrev Valdis Klētnieks :

> On Sun, 27 Dec 2020 17:57:17 +0100, Baldur Norddahl said:
>
> > Here in the civilised world we bury the wires ;-)
>
> Even the long-haul 765kv and up connections across the power grid?
>
> In the US, they're out on towers for a reason - you can fly along them
> in a helicopter and easily spot parts of cable that are degrading and need
> repair because they glow brighter on an infrared scope...
>
> (Plus, as Hurricane Sandy taught Manhattan, buried wires have their
> own rather nasty failure modes)
>

All of the 400V and 10 kV is buried. That means no wires along streets,
anywhere.

The long haul transmission network consists mostly of 150 kV and 400 kV
lines. That has been partly buried, especially near and in cities. There
was a project to have it all buried but was abandoned halfway due to cost.

But then it is all fully redundant, so they will just power it down if it
needs maintenance. My company is digging for FTTH and in the few cases we
need to cross one of these bad guys, they will shut it for us while we are
working. Nobody looses power of course.

The 10 kV network is redundant too. We managed to hit those a few times.
That will cause a power interruption for 10 to 20 minutes until they
reroute the power. I believe mostly for safety, they need to be sure that
the damaged line will not become energized again.

Regards

Baldur

Re: [External] Re: 10g residential CPE

[Michael Thomas]

On 12/27/20 10:00 AM, Valdis Klētnieks wrote:

On Sun, 27 Dec 2020 17:57:17 +0100, Baldur Norddahl said:


Here in the civilised world we bury the wires ;-)

Even the long-haul 765kv and up connections across the power grid?

In the US, they're out on towers for a reason - you can fly along them
in a helicopter and easily spot parts of cable that are degrading and need
repair because they glow brighter on an infrared scope...

(Plus, as Hurricane Sandy taught Manhattan, buried wires have their
own rather nasty failure modes)


Right and here in California, it was precisely those lines that 
incinerated Paradise. The problem with PG is that they couldn't be 
bothered to maintain anything since it got in the way of cushy estaff 
salaries and investor dividends. The tower that caused Paradise was a 
century old.


Mike

Re: [External] Re: 10g residential CPE

[Valdis Klētnieks]

On Sun, 27 Dec 2020 17:57:17 +0100, Baldur Norddahl said:

> Here in the civilised world we bury the wires ;-)

Even the long-haul 765kv and up connections across the power grid?

In the US, they're out on towers for a reason - you can fly along them
in a helicopter and easily spot parts of cable that are degrading and need
repair because they glow brighter on an infrared scope...

(Plus, as Hurricane Sandy taught Manhattan, buried wires have their
own rather nasty failure modes)


pgpaNvJePUX6d.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: [External] Re: 10g residential CPE

[Michael Thomas]

On 12/27/20 9:38 AM, Mark Tinka wrote:



On 12/27/20 18:14, Michael Thomas wrote:

We have both, and are going to get a battery. But the battery would 
probably only be good for about a day which is not enough, especially 
with these planned shutoffs because they have to inspect their wire 
plant in daylight.


If you can add some solar panels to that, you would be in a better 
position to prolong the battery's utility.


I'd say dump the generator, and invest that money in solar panels, 
rather. Batteries are way more costly than panels, and if you can have 
both, you're going to be better off in the long run.


We can't get enough solar panels on the roof to charge a battery big 
enough to handle a multi-day outage, and the battery as quoted is only 
charged from the panels, not from the mains. It's easy enough to get a 
transfer switch though for the battery subpanel to hook the generator up 
to. If I really wanted to get fancy, I could supply the generator from 
our house propane tank, but it's not that hard to just use the normal 5 
gallon type tanks.


Mike, it's sunday so i guess it's ok to be off topic :)

Re: [External] Re: 10g residential CPE

[Mark Tinka]

On 12/27/20 18:57, Baldur Norddahl wrote:



Here in the civilised world we bury the wires ;-)


I'm certain every country has a combination of both... one of those more 
than the other in some places, but a combo nonetheless.


Ultimately, it's most unlikely that any utility company is going to 
serve the growing needs of the world, as a going concern. If there is a 
chance you can self-produce, to some extent, that'd be worth looking into.


Mark.

Re: [External] Re: 10g residential CPE

[Mark Tinka]

On 12/27/20 18:14, Michael Thomas wrote:

We have both, and are going to get a battery. But the battery would 
probably only be good for about a day which is not enough, especially 
with these planned shutoffs because they have to inspect their wire 
plant in daylight.


If you can add some solar panels to that, you would be in a better 
position to prolong the battery's utility.


I'd say dump the generator, and invest that money in solar panels, 
rather. Batteries are way more costly than panels, and if you can have 
both, you're going to be better off in the long run.


Mark.

Re: [External] Re: 10g residential CPE

[Baldur Norddahl]

søn. 27. dec. 2020 17.14 skrev Michael Thomas :

>
>
> We have both, and are going to get a battery. But the battery would
> probably only be good for about a day which is not enough, especially
> with these planned shutoffs because they have to inspect their wire
> plant in daylight. There has to be a better technical solution for this
> beyond just burying the wires. A properly trained AI could probably
> figure out what's naught and nice.
>

Here in the civilised world we bury the wires ;-)

Re: [External] Re: 10g residential CPE

[Michael Thomas]

On 12/27/20 2:26 AM, Mark Tinka wrote:



On 12/26/20 23:57, Michael Thomas wrote:



Yeah, it burned somebody's house to a crisp here last year around 
here. It certainly makes the case why leaving professionals in charge 
of power issues is the better idea. although with pg it's a tough 
call, my telco not so much.


I considered a generator at some point, for home back up.

In the end, and for various reasons, I settled on renewables.

I'm just not sure where all that Li-Ion will go after 15 - 20 years of 
use, though...


One European manufacturer (the one whose battery I bought) says that 
as of now, they can only recycle 20% of each battery they sell. To me, 
that sounds like just the metal case enclosure, and the plastic facia.


Ah well, maybe disposal tech. for Li-Ion storage will have improved by 
2040.




We have both, and are going to get a battery. But the battery would 
probably only be good for about a day which is not enough, especially 
with these planned shutoffs because they have to inspect their wire 
plant in daylight. There has to be a better technical solution for this 
beyond just burying the wires. A properly trained AI could probably 
figure out what's naught and nice.


Mike

Re: 10g residential CPE

[Mark Tinka]

On 12/26/20 20:48, Darin Steffl wrote:


Aaron,

One simple question. Why on earth would you offer free internet 
service? How and why? Your site show 1 Gig symmetrical for free when 
you should be a minimum of $65 per month to be competitive.


They also ask for no monthly fee after a single payment of US$300.

Considering the 2Gbps package costs US$49.95, you'd guess they'd value 
the 1Gbps service at, say US$27/month, give or take.


So that US$300 provides a bit of coverage, perhaps 1 year, in which time 
they'd have likely upgraded the customer.


Mark.

Re: 10g residential CPE

[Mark Tinka]

On 12/26/20 20:48, Darin Steffl wrote:


Aaron,

One simple question. Why on earth would you offer free internet 
service? How and why? Your site show 1 Gig symmetrical for free when 
you should be a minimum of $65 per month to be competitive.




For me, looks like a loss-leader to reel customers in, perhaps with some 
limitations, no guarantees, time/term restrictions, no CPE, no support, 
e.t.c., that make a "smooth" upgrade to 2Gbps or 3Gbps more sensible.


My theory would be that getting customers on to the platform is the 
hardest step. Once they're on, pivoting them isn't difficult, 
particularly if you nabbed them from a competitor that was charging them 
some $$ for 10Mbps.


Think about it, they don't offer a "Multi-Gigabit Wireless Router" with 
the 1Gbps service. Chances are the customers who choose this package 
either have a crappy device, or will likely buy a crappy device on their 
own. They'd never trouble the 1Gbps product, probably call KC Fiber for 
to complain about not getting 1Gbps, upon which KC Fiber recommend their 
own CPE, a more guaranteed package, e.t.c., and in comes the 2Gbps or 
higher, revenue-generating service.


One the network side, it's just the same port, different (cheap) optic. 
A cheap port in use for free is better than an unused port, if the 
switch and fibre are already installed, and at less than 60% take-up.


It's creative, I like it!



Mark.

Re: [External] Re: 10g residential CPE

[Mark Tinka]

On 12/26/20 23:57, Michael Thomas wrote:



Yeah, it burned somebody's house to a crisp here last year around 
here. It certainly makes the case why leaving professionals in charge 
of power issues is the better idea. although with pg it's a tough 
call, my telco not so much.


I considered a generator at some point, for home back up.

In the end, and for various reasons, I settled on renewables.

I'm just not sure where all that Li-Ion will go after 15 - 20 years of 
use, though...


One European manufacturer (the one whose battery I bought) says that as 
of now, they can only recycle 20% of each battery they sell. To me, that 
sounds like just the metal case enclosure, and the plastic facia.


Ah well, maybe disposal tech. for Li-Ion storage will have improved by 2040.

Mark.

Re: [External] Re: 10g residential CPE

[Mark Tinka]

On 12/26/20 22:58, Michael Thomas wrote:



Here in California the new reality is that multi-day outages are now 
common. The first few planned outages were 3-4 days, so that would be 
on the edge, especially if it's for gabby granny on the phone for 
hours.This all depends on the weather, and for snow related outages 
they can go on for days. We have a generator because of this, but 
everybody getting a generator in the middle of the Berkeley Hills 
would be something of its own horror show, but it will probably come 
down to that.


I know someone who will sell you a Powerwall :-), not that I'd recommend 
it...


Mark.

Re: 10g residential CPE

[Mark Tinka]

On 12/26/20 20:30, Aaron Wendel wrote:



https://www.kcfiber.com/residential 


Curious, any chance you took over Google's fibre project :-)?

Mark.

Re: 10g residential CPE

[Mark Tinka]

On 12/26/20 20:30, Aaron Wendel wrote:


We run MikroTik RB4011s for residential speeds between 1G and 10G or 
just supply a media converter.  For residential 40G and 100G we just 
drop in Arista or Extreme switches.  SMBs are normally just a media 
converter or direct fiber handoff.


https://mikrotik.com/product/rb4011igs_5hacq2hnd_in 



There are not a lot of options for good, off the shelf 10G CPE 
equipment.  The handful of 10G residential customers we have seem to 
be happy with the tik.  The couple that don’t use it have rolled their 
own solution.


Like anything, I’m sure once the major home broadband providers start 
to catch up with us smaller guys the vendors will catch up as well.


I like the Tik for a home CPE because it will keep getting updates for 
as long as you have it.


That is unlike typical home CPE that need to be swapped out every year 
to pick up a new feature.


It does not surprise me, one bit, that the Tik is just about the only 
half-decent 10Gbps-capable CPE out there that won't break the bank. The 
fact that you can get software updates for it every few weeks/months 
makes it a lot more compelling than your usual CPE suspects.


Mark.