Spark cellsite with no redundancy. Fibre internet outage = cellsite outage

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Spark cellsite with no redundancy. Fibre internet outage = cellsite outage

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#2701643 4-May-2021 12:52

Linux:

@steve98 So every single cell-site should have Fibre and Microwave backup?

I never said they should have both. I said there should be some form of redundancy, whether it's via another fibre or a wireless link.

And it wouldn't need to be every cell-site, but as a bare minimum those cell-sites where they are the only ones within range of a community (especially those with no copper) should absolutely have redundancy.

Talkiet

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#2701695 4-May-2021 13:13

Personally I'm annoyed that I can only have a single electrical connection from one provider into my house. And don't get me started on how only one company has chosen to build reticulated gas to my place!!!

I'd happily pay $3-$5 extra per month for a resilient electrical feed.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

Linux

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#2701699 4-May-2021 13:25

@Talkiet The human race made it this far with out cell sites having a backup!

tripper1000

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#2701701 4-May-2021 13:37

boosacnoodle: This is a bit strange to me given that Kaiapoi is right on SH1.

tripper1000: You can always get Starlink if it is that important.

And connect via.... Invercargill - quite possibly the furthest you could get from any international fibre links.

1) It gets around an outage that blacks our your local area

2) They're planning/presently building another 5 Starlink earth stations in NZ.

Edit: Geekzone internal link to location info:

grolschie

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#2701704 4-May-2021 13:48

steve98:

We live in a Chorus fibre subdivision in Kaiapoi, N Canterbury. In the subdivision there is a Spark 4G cell-site, but no Voda or 2deg coverage.

I'm in a Chorus-only subdivision in Kaiapoi also. Yeah, I get spark 4G, but my wife barely gets a Vodafone signal. During this latest outage, I had decent mobile coverage though.

As an aside, it's amazing what breaks when you have no internet, especially with home automation, Plex server, back to DVB-T TV, etc...

steve98

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#2701706 4-May-2021 13:50

Linux:

@Talkiet The human race made it this far with out cell sites having a backup!

Make light of all you like but until now we had copper landlines to dial 111 with which were pretty resilient. Before then, guess you'd just die. Let's not go back to those days. Seriously, this is the infrastructure we've chosen, and these are the flaws and their consequences if they're not designed and delivered right.

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

grolschie

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#2701708 4-May-2021 13:51

Interestingly, I read about a fibre outage in the Auckland CBD where some traffic was re-routed through other providers. But in this latest outage, Chorus subdivisions were cut off but nearby Enable areas were not. Surely, there should be an arrangement where these two companies have to co-operate?

steve98

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#2701711 4-May-2021 14:01

grolschie:

As an aside, it's amazing what breaks when you have no internet, especially with home automation, Plex server, back to DVB-T TV, etc...

Ha! Yes, I discovered that when the internet is down our Ring doorbell doesn't even ring!

Linux

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#2701713 4-May-2021 14:03

steve98:

grolschie:

As an aside, it's amazing what breaks when you have no internet, especially with home automation, Plex server, back to DVB-T TV, etc...

Ha! Yes, I discovered that when the internet is down our Ring doorbell doesn't even ring!

Sounds like you need a backup Door bell :)

grolschie

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#2701714 4-May-2021 14:07

Linux:

Sounds like you need a backup Door bell :)

Completely unnecessary barb.

Linux

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#2701720 4-May-2021 14:25

grolschie:

Linux:

Sounds like you need a backup Door bell :)

Completely unnecessary barb.

@grolschie Dude it is tongue and cheek

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grolschie

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#2701721 4-May-2021 14:26

Linux:

grolschie:

Completely unnecessary barb.

@grolschie Dude it is tongue and cheek

Ok, sorry. 👍

Talkiet

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#2701724 4-May-2021 14:29

Linux:

Sounds like you need a backup Door bell :)

Sheesh!

:-)

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PolicyGuy

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#2701727 4-May-2021 14:45

Linux:

@Talkiet The human race made it this far with out cell sites having a backup!

Until now the human race in NZ had alternate means of communication, mostly copper lines for which the infrastructure was massively resilient. Now our newest 'flashest' subdivisions have only fibre - or not even that - and cellular, so it's a bit of a surprise to discover that the service is quite fragile. One fibre cut and you've neither phone nor data.

And of course, to make your 'landline' VoIP phone work in a power cut, you have to provide your own UPS.
Your cellphone probably won't work for long because the cellular provider cheaped out and put only a small battery in the only neighbourhood cell tower, so it goes out after a couple of hours without mains.

The future is so shiny now we're living in it, eh

Edit: typo

sbiddle

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#2701733 4-May-2021 15:01

steve98:

We live in a Chorus fibre subdivision in Kaiapoi, N Canterbury. In the subdivision there is a Spark 4G cell-site, but no Voda or 2deg coverage.

Whenever there is a fibre outage, not only does the subdivision lose internet / "landline" access, but the cell-site also goes down. To me that indicates that there is a lack of redundancy to the cell tower, which is bad as it leaves the entire community without a reliable way to dial 111. If you're lucky, you can get 1 bar of 3G from a distant cell-site, but the connection drops often.

I have raised this with Spark over the phone, but don't have much faith in it being followed up from previous experiences. Is there anyone from Spark on here who can comment on how "normal" it is for a cell-site to share the same infrastructure as the subdivision's fibre network without redundancy, and can perhaps look at this? Our next door neighbour recently suffered two heart attacks and she is quite scared at the thought of not being able to dial for help.

(Note: we are currently in an outage that begun yesterday at 3:30pm-ish. It impacts the entire subdivision, regardless of service provider, so points to Chorus fibre outage, yet there is nothing on the Chorus outage map).

Most cellsites will all have single points of failure. It's simply the thje way things are engineered.

It's no different to most last mile copper and fibre networks in NZ, and distribution fibre in some parts of the country.

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