In terms of equipment protection, the batteries, together with uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) and switch power supply systems, play a vital role in preventing voltage surges, spikes, and transients from the electric grid, effectively protecting communication devices and preventing site outages.
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Do I need to replace my base station's batteries?
If you're not certain which system you have, see the Which Version of the SimpliSafe® System Do I Have article. You will likely never need to replace your Base Station's batteries as they are rechargeable and meant to last. The Base Station takes four (4) 1.2V, 1300mAh nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) rechargeable batteries.
Why do I need to replace my battery?
The reason is that batteries have a lifecycle beyond which, they tend to suffer issues right from performance, charging up to the full capacity, etc. If it is a removable battery, you can spot any physical damage or check if it is swollen or not which is a pointer showcasing it is damaged.
In practice, the battery groups (either traditional lead-acid batteries or emerging lithium ones) are deployed as the backup power supply of BSs. In our scenario, one battery group could be shared by multiple BSs nearby to exploit the statistical multiplexing gain, and the multiple BSs sharing the same battery group form a virtual cell (VC).
Should you replace lead-acid batteries with lithium batteries in power backup?
Replacing the traditional lead-acid batteries with lithium ones in power backup is one option and trend, as the latter uses more cost-efficient materials that is more reliable, efficient and space-saving .
Why are backup batteries important?
These power demands, from one side, are satisfied by the power grid, and are safeguarded by backup batteries from the other side. As the power from the grid does not necessarily guarantee 100% uptime, the backup power provided by batteries is playing an important role.
Can a BS share a backup battery?
A naive solution is to equip each BS with an individual backup battery (group), while it is also the most expensive solution without taking any advantage of the BS deployment scenario. Considering the 5G heterogeneous network (HetNet) architecture with ultra dense small BS deployment, it is possible to share the backup power among multiple BSs.