In article <eup16q$oko$1@reader2.panix.com>, Serge wrote:
telecoms company, and he is putting in expensive bits of this sort of kit
all day every day. He keeps a box of specialised telephone line surge
protectors in his van and puts them into every line that he's working on,
or os he tells me. He doesn't see many failures, or many cases where the
surge protector has gone and protected the equipment from damage, but he
does see some, and his employers (who lease a *lot* of very expensive
equipment to a lot of clients) obviously think that the 5 minutes it takes
per line (and a non-trivial amount of wiring cabinet space and other
materials) is worth the effort.
I have never taken apart a "surge protector" system to find if they
use similar devices internally. I'd just go and ask Kenny for a handful if
I thought it was ever going to be a significant problem. To be honest, I'd
think that a proper UPS system was considerably higher on my list of
priorities. I suspect that domestic "surge protector" power strips etc are
FUD for selling useless kit to the fearful. Industrial equipment that
covers some of the same areas of concern costs a LOT more, and it's
capabilities are much more carefully described in the data sheets. That
makes me think that the problem generally needs a lot more analysis than a
£15 outlay suggests. I doubt they're likely to hurt though (except for the
£15).

--
Aidan Karley
Aberdeen, Scotland
Written at Sun, 01 Apr 2007 23:29 +0100, but posted later.