Outage
From Free net encyclopedia
In telecommunications, an outage is a telecommunications system service condition in which a user is completely deprived of service by the system. In the power generation industry an outage is a power service condition where a power consumer is completely deprived of power by the system.
Note: For a particular system or a given situation, an outage may be a service condition that is below a defined system operational threshold, i.e., below a threshold of acceptable performance. See outage threshold.
Source: from Federal Standard 1037C and from MIL-STD-188
Sun Outage
Each Spring and Fall, cable companies experience a technical phenomenon called "sun outages." For a period of about 2 weeks, the sun causes "solar interference" to all geostationary satellite signals. As the sun's path across the sky gets lower each day, there are times when it is in a direct line behind a communication satellite that is sending signals to a receiving satellite dish here on earth. When the dish antenna is looking into the sun, the interference from the sun overrides the signals from the satellite. This is when a sun outage occurs.
Sun outages typically occur during the months of February/March and September/October and can last as long as 15 minutes a day and take place over a period of 15 days. The effects of a sun outage vary in degree from minimal to total outage throughout the 15 day period. Once it reaches its peak, the interference will gradually decrease becoming less noticeable each day after.
Unfortunately, there is technically nothing we can do to prevent sun outages from occurring. Each satellite service that we receive signals from will experience this interference at predictable times.
Source :-Time Warner Cable.