An old TV crashed an entire town's broadband
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An old TV crashed an entire town's broadband
Jumping Trout, LLC
(CNET 2020) In Wales, people kept losing their internet connection at 7 a.m. every day for 18 months, so broadband proivder Openreach had to find the cause. On Tuesday, Openreach revealed it was caused by electrical interference from an old second-hand TV.
"By using a device called a Spectrum Analyser, we walked up and down the village in the torrential rain at 6 a.m. to see if we could find an "electrical noise", says Local Openreach engineer Michael Jones. "And at 7 a.m., like clockwork, it happened! Our device picked up a large burst of elecrtical interference in the village."
It turns out that this interference actually has a name. SHINE - single high-level impulse noise - is where an appliance emits electrical interference that impacts broadband connectivity.
The folks at Openreach spent months trying to track down what was happening, and even replaced large portions of cable throughout the town and surrounding areas. It took a camp out to figure out the true source.
So, the occupant would turn on their TV every morning at 7 a.m., causing SHINE, and therefore an interference that put out an entire town's internet. "As you can imagine," Jones said, "when we pointed this out to the resident, they were mortified that their old second-hand TV was the cause of the entire village's broadband problems, and they immediately agreed to switch it off and not use it again."
This poor TV was just trying to make some lonely person happy - who had to stay inside because of COVID, and ended up ruining everyone elses day! Well, that's 2020 for you. I hope they at least gave this person a new TV!
Source: https://www.cnet.com/news/an-old-tv-crashed-entire-towns-broadband-every-day-for-more-than-a-year/
"By using a device called a Spectrum Analyser, we walked up and down the village in the torrential rain at 6 a.m. to see if we could find an "electrical noise", says Local Openreach engineer Michael Jones. "And at 7 a.m., like clockwork, it happened! Our device picked up a large burst of elecrtical interference in the village."
It turns out that this interference actually has a name. SHINE - single high-level impulse noise - is where an appliance emits electrical interference that impacts broadband connectivity.
The folks at Openreach spent months trying to track down what was happening, and even replaced large portions of cable throughout the town and surrounding areas. It took a camp out to figure out the true source.
So, the occupant would turn on their TV every morning at 7 a.m., causing SHINE, and therefore an interference that put out an entire town's internet. "As you can imagine," Jones said, "when we pointed this out to the resident, they were mortified that their old second-hand TV was the cause of the entire village's broadband problems, and they immediately agreed to switch it off and not use it again."
This poor TV was just trying to make some lonely person happy - who had to stay inside because of COVID, and ended up ruining everyone elses day! Well, that's 2020 for you. I hope they at least gave this person a new TV!
Source: https://www.cnet.com/news/an-old-tv-crashed-entire-towns-broadband-every-day-for-more-than-a-year/
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