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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snnet

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#2703096 6-May-2021 21:15

Should also be noted that even if a corridor access request / traffic management has been approved, a lot of the time the traffic management doesn't actually start until the time the repair was meant to start which further delays the repair (as it needs to be all set up and in place before any work will begin) - we experience this all the time, and there doesn't seem to be anything anyone can do about it - repeated communication with traffic management doesn't accomplish a fix. Often we're given a window of time for a repair/run to take place but can't strictly abide by it because of this

decibel

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#2703111 6-May-2021 23:18

This is not a question of who puts fibre where - other ISPs seemed to survive this break successfully, why didn't Spark.?

The answer surely is that they did not have the ability to re-route around the break.

And it is not a question of needing to add fibre at great cost - the fibre is already there south to Wellington.

SomeoneSomewhere

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#2703119 7-May-2021 05:02

Other ISPs may use a different network provider, and if a different fibre had been cut, that ISP might have lost all traffic while spark is fine.

Fibre access costs money and if the owner gets too greedy, about your only options are to shift to another provider if there is one, dig a new trench, or give up the redundancy.

yitz

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#2703282 7-May-2021 10:27

Recalling this thread from last year where it is revealed that sometimes their traffic gets routed the long way round due to their distributed extent of their broadband network and mismatches between theirs and Chorus' network footprints.

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=39&topicid=272174&page_no=3#2522070

It could be for instance that Spark hand over traffic for Masterton in Napier for which Chorus has less diverse paths than say somewhere in greater Wellington region where Chorus may have multiple paths to Masterton. If they insist on doing it like this then they should be prepared to re-route traffic via Wellington and co-ordinate with Chorus to re-map tails to a Wellington handover at short notice.

hio77

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#2703360 7-May-2021 13:19

decibel:

This is not a question of who puts fibre where - other ISPs seemed to survive this break successfully, why didn't Spark.?

The answer surely is that they did not have the ability to re-route around the break.

And it is not a question of needing to add fibre at great cost - the fibre is already there south to Wellington.

This is where the pros and cons to going with a large provider vs a smaller one come in.

The fibre cut was felt by many isps but generally for them that path is traffic between their core networks, so most providers have a redundant path.

Spark do have an alternative path however, based on comments made by spark folk here it sounds like that link was carrying the handovers.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

tripper1000

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#2703432 7-May-2021 15:15

decibel: This is not a question of who puts fiber where - other ISPs seemed to survive this break successfully, why didn't Spark? The answer surely is that they did not have the ability to re-route around the break.

Other ISP's are not even necessarily using the same fiber, so are unaffected when it breaks.

Recall the old days when Clear had to find/rent/lay its own fiber independent of Telecom (such as along the railway lines)? Well Vodafone bought Clear (via Telsra?) and so has fiber back-haul that is independent of Chorus in some/many areas, and it doesn't all necessarily boarder public roads.

Also big chunks of 2dm and V.F.'s cellular network uses microwave back haul so can be unaffected by Chorus fiber faults.

This doesn't mean V.F. has 'better' redundancy, just (sometimes) independent back haul, so what takes down V.F. doesn't necessarily take down Spark and vice-versa.

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Ragnor

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#2706704 12-May-2021 21:36

An expectation of zero outages ever is not realistic

decibel

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#2707000 13-May-2021 13:49

Sorry, but several of you here misunderstand my original post.

I am not asking for a guarantee of zero outages, I understand the risks with diggers etc. and have full sympathy for roadworkers.

From what I can gather from Spark's inadequate status page and my neighbour's experience and the local garages EFTPOS problem is that all of Spark's customers in the Wairarapa lost service because of a break in a cable south of Napier.

This is an area with a population of 51,331 people in towns plus extra in various small rural communities. Not all are Spark customers but there must be a lot of them.

Masterton alone has a population of 21400.

Why is it that Spark thinks so little of us that it only provides a single link into the core of its network?

What is so difficult about an alternate link south to Wellington?

Sorry, I know the answer - it all boils down to a little bit of money. Save the cents and the dollars will look after themselves.

We are all just numbers on a spreadsheet and why should they care? As predicted above, they have laid all the blame on Chorus.

yitz

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#2707049 13-May-2021 15:10

Here's the list of Chorus points of interconnect for interest:

"To provide national coverage for NGA fibre a minimum of 5 regional handovers is required. One in each regional POI. Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin."

I would say if you meet Chorus at their Regional POIs where everything is higher capacity and there is also naturally more diversity built-in while if you meet them at Local POIs there is less or no secondary path especially inter-Local-POI level e.g. between Napier and Masterton

SomeoneSomewhere

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#2707132 13-May-2021 19:05

Bear in mind it's possible that there was already a cable failure, and the Napier cable was the second failure.

yitz

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#2707151 13-May-2021 19:36

The alternate link south to Wellington must still be down 🤣

Digger puts hole in phone network
20 Jun, 2005 12:30 PM

Whanganui Chronicle
By: Sean Hoskins

An ill-placed Taranaki posthole managed to knock out the New Zealand Stock Exchange yesterday and cripple much of the North Island's mobile and internet communications.

Telecom New Zealand were dealing with a damaged fibre optic cable in the Rimutaka area when the posthole digger preparing a hole for a new power pole between Waverley and Patea hit another fibre cable, seriously disrupting service from around 10am yesterday.

The fault crashed the Stock Exchange and affected broadband internet access and mobile phones, leading to overloading of landlines over much of the country.

It also affected other data services, including Eftpos, until technicians restored full service at 3.18pm yesterday. Telecom spokeswoman Sarah Berry said the outage was caused by an unfortunate coincidence of damage to the network in two places.

"In the first, there was physical damage to fibre on a bridge in the Rimutaka area. Services through that fibre were able to be routed through different parts of the network until the second incident occurred in South Taranaki where a posthole digger damaged a fibre."

She said Telecom regretted the inconvenience to customers.

A spokeswoman for the stock exchange told NZPA the market had closed at 11.01 am, as soon as it became aware of a breakdown between Auckland and Wellington.

It was the sixth time that technical problems have caused the closure of the stock market in the past nine months.

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