For example. If phones in NJ couldn’t connect to the internet, would people in California have any notice besides not being able to call their family?
GPS would fail as soon as the first tz ticked over. Internet routing would fail instantly too.
if all communication electronics died on New Year's day, how long would it take for other time zones to notice
Submitted 2 days ago by Zirconium@lemmy.world to [deleted]
Comments
adespoton@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Brkdncr@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Sysadmins would know right away.
EpicMuch@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
My co workers are in Ireland, England, India, Japan and the USA. We’d notice pretty quick
litchralee@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
As immediate as the power grid falls apart without constant frequency synchronization, so probably seconds. I do consider North America’s Western, Eastern, and Texas power grids as a communication system, because it does convey the precise 60 Hz AC line rate to every part of the continent.
XeroxCool@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Are you saying they’re in sync? And the wavelength is that reliable?
halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yes. By necessity. The grid has to be kept in sync within a fairly small frequency range to operate. Every generator that is grid connected, is spinning at the same frequency. It is a small enough window that you can use it as a reliable clock.
Every time the power load changes they have to compensate with increasing or decreasing the power available to balance within the small frequency window. A deviation as small as 0.5 Hz can cause some protective relays to trip and bring down sections of the grid.
This is also one of the major reasons why it takes so long to bring the grid back online after a blackout. They have to balance power output with the load in each section as it is brought online so it doesn’t just disconnect itself again immediately from an imbalance.
adb@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
They have to be otherwise generators start working against each other