Spark and "their" version of the internet

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Spark and "their" version of the internet

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315 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2702916 6-May-2021 14:11

timmmay:

It does seem odd that there is only one fiber servicing a fairly large area. I thought there was a fiber ring around the islands, so if it gets cut one place it can come from the other direction?

I don't think it's odd, I think it is incompetent network design.

Had to pay cash at the local petrol station as their EFTPOS was down.

I can guarantee, Spark will try to shift all the blame to Chorus.

mattwnz

20141 posts

Uber Geek

#2702990 6-May-2021 15:50

Seems to be fixed now after about 25 hours of no phone or internet. Apparently according to stuff, they couldn't work on it during the night due to health and safety with working at nigh and technicians fatique. WTH. Health and safety seems to be the excuse for everything these days. Sure there could have been ways to mitigate any risks etc. The stuff article also seemed to say that it was only affecting spark users and not other ISPs. I am not sure how that could be the case.

It also said landline services were restored last night which is wrong.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/125045448/thousands-of-spark-customers-impacted-by-chorus-cable-cut#comments

Talkiet

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#2702992 6-May-2021 15:52

mattwnz:

Seems to be fixed now after about 25 hours of no phone or internet. Apparently according to stuff, they couldn't work on it during the night due to health and safety with working at nigh and technicians fatique. WTH. Health and safety seems to be the excuse for everything these days. Sure there could have been ways to mitigate any risks etc.

State Highway, roadworks area, night-time.

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.

chevrolux

4962 posts

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#2702997 6-May-2021 16:05

mattwnz:

Seems to be fixed now after about 25 hours of no phone or internet. Apparently according to stuff, they couldn't work on it during the night due to health and safety with working at nigh and technicians fatique. WTH. Health and safety seems to be the excuse for everything these days. Sure there could have been ways to mitigate any risks etc.

Please pass your feedback on to the families of the workers who died working on the road last year.

Working on the shoulder, or close to it, (where a hell of a lot of fibre sits) is dangerous as hell because drivers are idiots.

mattwnz

20141 posts

Uber Geek

#2702998 6-May-2021 16:13

Talkiet:

mattwnz:

Seems to be fixed now after about 25 hours of no phone or internet. Apparently according to stuff, they couldn't work on it during the night due to health and safety with working at nigh and technicians fatique. WTH. Health and safety seems to be the excuse for everything these days. Sure there could have been ways to mitigate any risks etc.

State Highway, roadworks area, night-time.

N

All can be mitigated and controlled and would hope they have processes in place for this type of event. Hitting pipes etc isn't that unexpected during construction. Reducing speed to 10km/hr, and possibly very little traffic in the early mornings. Cones, single land, controlled signal etc. The cost to the economy could be massive if it had occurred to Auckland for example.

chevrolux

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#2703003 6-May-2021 16:22

mattwnz:

All can be mitigated and controlled and would hope they have processes in place for this type of event. Hitting pipes etc isn't that unexpected during construction. Reducing speed to 10km/hr, and possibly very little traffic in the early mornings. Cones, one lane, controlled signal etc. The cost to the economy could be massive if it had occurred to Auckland for example.

Hah... you've never submitted a traffic plan to NZTA (or local traffic authority) have you.

ALL of those things get put in place, but there are still very strict timings on when you can actually enact those plans because, and I'll say it in louder this time, PEOPE DIE.

mattwnz

20141 posts

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#2703007 6-May-2021 16:28

chevrolux:

mattwnz:

Seems to be fixed now after about 25 hours of no phone or internet. Apparently according to stuff, they couldn't work on it during the night due to health and safety with working at nigh and technicians fatique. WTH. Health and safety seems to be the excuse for everything these days. Sure there could have been ways to mitigate any risks etc.

Please pass your feedback on to the families of the workers who died working on the road last year.

Working on the shoulder, or close to it, (where a hell of a lot of fibre sits) is dangerous as hell because drivers are idiots.

I don't disagree. That begs the question as to whether that is the best place to run cables , close to the side roads, due to the risks, and resulting in health and safety issues for those that have to work on it.

But there are ways to mitigate or eliminate risks, even with the idiots on the roads. Slowing traffic down to 5-10km/hr and lane diversions, to free up space, using cones and/ or traffic officers to enforce it etc . Those idiots are also on the road during the day, but I would have thought there should be a lot less people inconvenience during the early morning hours, than if workin gon it during the day. . The problem is that fibre is such an important part of the economy now, and will only get more and more important. .

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mattwnz

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#2703008 6-May-2021 16:30

chevrolux:

mattwnz:

All can be mitigated and controlled and would hope they have processes in place for this type of event. Hitting pipes etc isn't that unexpected during construction. Reducing speed to 10km/hr, and possibly very little traffic in the early mornings. Cones, one lane, controlled signal etc. The cost to the economy could be massive if it had occurred to Auckland for example.

Hah... you've never submitted a traffic plan to NZTA (or local traffic authority) have you.

No I haven't. It is probably opening up a can of worms!

quickymart

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#2703021 6-May-2021 17:10

It's not as simple as just submitting a form and waiting for, "yep, all good", especially in situations where stuff needs to be fixed right now. It can take some time to get this sort of thing underway.

Lias

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#2703027 6-May-2021 17:39

chevrolux:

Hah... you've never submitted a traffic plan to NZTA (or local traffic authority) have you.

Never had to, but have felt the pain indirectly!

A few years ago I was trying to get a UFB install for a branch site in Auckland on a main road that also happened to be a State Highway, just being the customer it was painful enough. Even more so when the guy finally turns up to do the install at the site to find that the work in the pit hadn't been completed properly and tells me he could fix it in 5 minutes but he can't go open the pit for H&S reasons. I swear the Auckland branch manager nearly cried when I had to tell her.

I'm a geek, a gamer, a dad, a Quic user, and an IT Professional. I have a full rack home lab, size 15 feet, an epic beard and Asperger's. I'm a bit of a Cypherpunk, who believes information wants to be free and the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. If you use my Quic signup you can also use the code R570394EKGIZ8 for free setup.

decibel

315 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2703032 6-May-2021 17:59

As predicted, Spark is blaming Chorus for the outage -

"Spark spokeswoman Ellie Cross said earlier that Spark had established that a Chorus fibre-optic cable had been cut and that Chorus was working on a fix."

And, as I suspected, the news media is too technically backward to ask why only Spark was affected and how come the other ISPs managed to keep running?

sbiddle

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#2703044 6-May-2021 19:01

One thing you're all forgetting is much of the fibre around the country is owned by Chorus and Spark who both own fibres within the bundles as part of separation. Chorus look after all this fibre and are responsible for repairs.

Other RSPs buying wholesale services or transit from Chorus or from another transit provider could have circuits with redundancy whereas Spark may not necessarily have that ability with their own fibre or their network design.

yitz

2074 posts

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#2703046 6-May-2021 19:05

My guess is that a decade on from structural separation parts of their domestic network are still very closely intertwined with Chorus' with reliance placed as if they remained the incumbent operator of a wholly vertically integrated network.

SomeoneSomewhere

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#2703054 6-May-2021 19:28

mattwnz:

chevrolux:

Please pass your feedback on to the families of the workers who died working on the road last year.

Working on the shoulder, or close to it, (where a hell of a lot of fibre sits) is dangerous as hell because drivers are idiots.

I don't disagree. That begs the question as to whether that is the best place to run cables , close to the side roads, due to the risks, and resulting in health and safety issues for those that have to work on it.

But there are ways to mitigate or eliminate risks, even with the idiots on the roads. Slowing traffic down to 5-10km/hr and lane diversions, to free up space, using cones and/ or traffic officers to enforce it etc . Those idiots are also on the road during the day, but I would have thought there should be a lot less people inconvenience during the early morning hours, than if workin gon it during the day. . The problem is that fibre is such an important part of the economy now, and will only get more and more important. .

Putting up a sign does nothing about the person who comes around a corner doing 160 because there's no-one else on the road. They will blow past all the warning signs assuming that "damn contractors couldn't be bothered to take down the signs at the end of the day". Cones can't stop a vehicle going that fast. One of the fancy impact-absorbing trucks would just get pushed along, killing the driver.

Rural state highways don't have room for lane closures or closing the shoulder. Chances are there is no shoulder and barely enough room to pass. All you can do is stop-go and that means getting a crew of a dozen out there. Give people a shitty job and make it worse and they will move on - it's going to be hard to find a crew that wants to go and stand in the middle of nowhere overnight for minimal pay.

If you're going to put it somewhere else, where? Railway lines are great but don't go everywhere. Trenching through the middle of a field means it's more likely to get disturbed, taken out by a landslide, and generally be hard to locate. And then you have to deal with the landowners. Better to use the money for redundancy or to extend the network to somewhere currently unserved.

sbiddle

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#2703088 6-May-2021 20:28

The side of the road has been pretty much the standard place to put fibre for several decades. It's taken a lot of work to get microtrenching approved and this is being used in parts of the new Lake Hawea to Haast cable (photo taken by me on the weekend).

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